Zootopia: Paw of Midas
by AxeO'War
Summary: Fresh from her first adventure in Ewegypt, Angie Flufferson and her boyfriend Logan Lupis continue their adventure, this time in search for the mythical Paw of Midas before the Brotherhood of Apep can claim this relic of Opulent sins.
1. Chapter 1: The Dromon

**Author's notice: This story has been revamped and undergone retconning to fit with the current canon of the Zootopia/SMITE lore I have made. Earl Lupis and Logan Lupis belongs to Shiryu Rex/Squdge of the GRC and ZooPlay Group.**

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Chapter 1: The Dromon

Time and money have been spent to organize the trip down to the Yucatan Peninsula in search for the lost city of the Mayans, the mythical city of gold which every mammal would gladly kill for. All would be sacrificed for the gold of Mayans and all the share of the loot and plunder will be nothing more than lies to maintain the cohesion of the group until the loot has been found. And yet, they have always been nothing more than mere tropes of fictions, none of them can prepare a real explorer, adventurer and archaeologist for a real trip to explore the unknown.

It couldn't be more true to Angie Flufferrson and her boyfriend Logan Lupis, they have been spending their time researching and preparing themselves for the second adventure to a world lost in time and forgotten by history. With Logan's skill as a scout and guide with all his fancy robotic gizmo, combined with Angie's foremost knowledge of the civilizations of the ancient world, the couple can pull through the dangers that await them.

Well that is if their journey hadn't been interfered with by a secret society, whose members worship a primordial god of chaos.

Since her first adventure in Ewegypt, Angie and Logan have prepared themselves accordingly with survival gears and a supply of archaeological equipment for the job. They entered the Yucatan Peninsula days ago by plane, they then subsequently catch a bus to a Mayan city covered by thick rain forest and thousands of years old dirt road giving off minor hints of a city built by civilizations before the ages of discovery. Both Angie and Logan carefully trace their steps in the thick jungle, going through foliage and keeping to the dirt road leading them towards the city known by the local name of City of Gold. "We are only about a mile away from the city, so hang in there Angie." Logan said while clearing through the thick foliage with his Bowie knife and monitor his Augmented Reality HUD's mini map and compass.

Following him closely from behind was Angie, who kept her muzzle up as she examines the book regarding the legendary El Dorado and where it would most likely to be found on the map if it were real. "Glad to hear, any ideas where those cultists might be?" She asked. Paying close attention to the map and hints of possible enemy placements, Logan assessed that they might head into heavy enemy concentration. "We're most likely heading towards a dense collection of armed hostiles. Those Cult of Apep guys must be really desperate for cash."

She sighed at the prospect of having to fight cultists mad for cash and riches of the world, a desperate mammal is the most dangerous one, without a doubt. Trailing the Sacbe through the forest and thick vegetation, they came across what appeared to be an old abandoned fishing village by the coast of the Peninsula, the huts were emptied of occupants, decay were shown to be visible on the walls and potteries were left behind by its owners, probably because of their large oval shape might hinder the carriers. The scene was something out of a haunted movie, an abandoned village with its occupants gone for good and no sign of re population in sight. "Oh my god, look at this place, it's like the village was cleansed by a plague." Angie muttered, her speculation didn't take long to reach Logan's ear. "You tell me, they probably left after seeing a Megalodon setting up real estate here." He sarcastically remarked at her.

Of course, since their encounter with Anubis and Apep in Ewegypt, Angie find his sarcasm might not be too far off either. "Come on, let's go take a look at their boats, maybe it'll give us a hint at what might had happened to the village." She said, yanking his muscular hand with a paw, the two wolves went down to the dock of the village to inspect the fishing boats. Much to their surprise, the boats were mostly intact with some showing the signs of age and broken planks on them."This is odd, all the boats weren't attack or damage by any aggressive action. So there is no reason for the villagers to leave so sudden." Angie said as she inspects one of the fishing raft with nets still intact.

But as Logan took another step forward to the far side of the village's dock, he caught the sight of an out-of-place vessel, a dromon of all types! A Bisontine dromon caught ashore, its form was unmistakable with the Bireme design and a trio of large triangulated masts. Its numerous oars had broken or were rotting away under the sun and rain of the Peninsula. "Angie, you might want to take a look at this!" Logan called out, and she subsequently dashed over to his side, catching the sight of the Bisontine ship with her eyes. The female arctic wolf dropped her jaw in pure shock and awe, the ship from the old world, an ocean away had somehow managed to get itself wash ashore on the Yucatan Peninsula.

There was no word that can describe the amount of awe she was experiencing, a sight such as this can only be a hoax for archaeologists like Angie. But to be absolutely certain and intellectually sound, she must inspect all the nooks and crannies and interiors and the intricate designs, protocols of the ship. Angie quickly leaps into action and scale the hull of the ship and to the deck of the Dromon inspecting its work space. Logan followed closely behind her but he was significantly much faster than her, consequently, when she made her way to the deck, he was already by the center mast inspecting it.

"Gee Angie, you really need to tell me when and where will you go the next time." He smirked sarcastically, she smiled back and gave him her one-liner. "Maybe, if you were an emperor." He continues to smirk at her before finally turning his attention back to the center mast of the ship.

He gently tapped the mast with his fingers, testing its durability over the years. The feedback, which went through his fingers sensitive paw pads tells him of immense Growlleek durability still remains within the wooden mast pillar. "This ship is around 1500 years old and the mast is still as good as the day it was erected, bet your nickel that Justinian christened this ship after the mule of a wife, Theodora." Conversely, Angie herself was looking over at some belongings and artifacts on the ship with great interests, these include a sheathed sword for Marines and various other artifacts such as spoons, clothing and jars for water and wine. She picked up a cross made of gold with fine jewelry decked out on it. The intricate details on it obviously screamed Bisontine's craftsmanship with attention to details, decor and placements of gems.

"This one appears to be made in the reign of Emperor Justinian the Great. Hmm, the cross seems to have been through some violent storm." Angie monologues to herself as she inspects the damages and rusting on the surface of the cross. Logan knelt down next to her and took interest in examining the details of the Holy Cross as the way it was scratched and the apparent dried blood on its surface suggest its former owner might have seen a gruesome end at sea.

"We might be able to find some more of its kind under the deck." He suggested. Angie nodded before turning her attention to the hatch leading down to the lower decks for the oars mammals and cargoes.

Unfortunately for her, the hatch was tightly shut, apparently whatever damages the ship had endured rendered the hatch shut tight and she must find an alternate entrance. Angie looked on the deck of the ship for a moment, before noticing a hole on the deck, it was large enough for her to slip her hand through but not enough for the young arctic wolf to drop into the lower deck. Accordingly, Logan gently planted some breaching charges on the deck around the hole, he then withdraws to a safe place behind the steering wheel with Angie and detonated the charges. The ensuing explosion blew a circular hole on the deck, granting them access to the interiors of the ship.

"Well, that was an interesting way of making an entrance." Angie said, examining the hole. "What can I say. I love a nice demolition romp." Logan coyly twirled his demolition tool around in his paw before jumping down with Angie. The lower decks were cleared of any corpses that might be left behind, only the dark shadow and spider webs remain. "Gosh, it's dark down here, good thing that we have our chemical lights." Logan exclaimed sarcastically, faking an expression of fear and awe under his tone.

"Logan, stay focus, I have a feeling that we're not the only ones who heard your little firework show." She scolded him while leading the way. The two of them eventually came to a door left opened by its occupants. The room on the other side was a cargo hold with a single chest emptied a long time ago.

"I guess the villagers took everything they could from the ship. I wonder what did they find useful in all of those trinkets." Logan said as he examined the barrels and crates.

Some barrels had the stench of Romammal wine, the scent of grapes came out of the barrel and assaulted Logan's chemical receptor, which was his nose. "Bare necessities, Romammal style, I would say definitely after Justinian's tenure by a year." He said as the forensic results came in for him to view. "Hey Logan, look at this, a journal by the Magister Militum of the Eastern Empire." Angie showed Logan a book with leather cover and golden ornate on its surface. When he flipped open the book, he found it to be written in Growlleek instead of Pig Latin. "That's odd, the Romams used Pig Latin, not Growlleek." He said sounding rather dumbfounded. "Yes they were using Pig Latin, but Eastern Empire were predominantly Growlleeks and used Growlleek as an official state language." She explained to him in a calm and thoughtful manner as they began to read from the book.

"My Emperor, Justinian the Great, he who married a whore of a wife and nearly rejuvenated the Empire that was the Paragon of Civilization. With his death came an opportunity, to enrich our pockets and to declare one's self as ruler of the World. Our is a political system fractured and plagued by corruptions, factionalism and treachery. Without a strong leader holding the reign, it would shatter. And shattered it did, the generals are now in an uproar, declaring themselves successors left and right before killing each other just as much as they let their blades taste the blood of barbarians and the Sassanid. I know what they want, we all want the Golden Paw, its touch render unto us all worldly wealth. Therefore, I shall take it to Tingis, hiding in a barbarian kingdom, biding my time before bringing the light of civilization to drive away the barbaric darkness that has fallen on us for so long."

Logan blunk a couple of times reading this. He however remembered a story he had glimpses of when he was a younger wolf. "Golden paw… Paw of… Midas?... The one that turns everything into gold? Or at least the guy who has it." Logan said think on what he was reading. It seemed to him a lot of conflict had happened in the past. Much of it being a greed and political conflict for the mighty relic. He seemed to be in shock reading the excerpt knowing much of it may have been true seeing the ship from another ancient civilization here.

Angie nodded to Logan as she flips the page of the journal, the second page was also written in Growlleek but it was much more revealing than before. "I guess Anubis was right when he said that we will find stuffs that redefine the knowledge of history." Said Angie as she reads the page of the journal by the Magister Militum.

"We have left Constantinople as planned, but now the journey's true peril began. We must dodge the rival fleets that prowls the Aegean Sea and the coast of Judea Province. Our first stop was the isle of Rhodos where we pick up our supplies, then we continue across the Mediterranean Sea towards Carthago where our arrival was disguised as a normal patrol and inspection, the guards there have been asking questions regarding our cargo hold. Clearly someone must have realized our departure. Thankfully we were able to shrug off the questions and left, Tingis was just some days of sailing away, when get there, we will be safe."

"Well guess he didn't arrive there as he planned, his other members could have made it but him...well his corpse said it all for us." Angie commented and put the journal down on the table and leave it be. The commander's cabin was apparently rotting away to the point that it was going to be nothing but woods drifting in the sea. The cabinet and metal craftsmanship of the decoration on the wooden drawers and cupboards was rusting away, some of the gold remains but most of it had rusted away long ago.

The gold was much to Logan's disappointment seeing it in a less than salvageable state currently. He sighed, but recalling the story some questions were left unanswered. "Doesn't sound like the full story. "Sounds like these guys were being really sneaky when they wanted to go. It must have been some kind of bad or good luck this thing-" Logan tapped his foot on the rotting wood. "-ended up here. Doesn't explain what happened to the village around here though. Looks like we are getting deeper into this though. What do you think?" Logan asked.

"I think they must have hit a tidal wave or caught in a typhoon and left maroon the ocean. It's a miracle for the ship to wind up here. Maybe some of the survivors got into the village and live with the Mayans." She suggested, her observation may have some merits as it is likely for a stranded, shipwreck bunch to seek refuge in the nearest settlement possible to sustain themselves. But the hope for them to return to their home and intended destination maybe impossible by that point. "Let's go inside the village, I have a feeling that they may have some clues for us." Said Angie as she went out of the ship's hull with Logan.

Logan followed closely, but looking around the forest, and the abandoned village gave him some feeling of unnerve. Walking off of the derelict ship, and back to the village he took in more details of what was giving him the creeps. "You ever get that feeling you're not alone?" He asked, but shook his head out and gave a less than confident chuckle. "Or maybe it's just me. I think anything can happen at this point. Or I watched too much TV about abandoned places like this." logan said recalling his life watching perhaps the wrong type of television.

"Actually, since Ewegypt, that may not be too far fetched." She remarked as they entered a mud house, it was a rather spacious one and its size can clearly tell them that this home belongs to an official or government worker. "This home must have been belonged to a overseer or maybe a government agent sent to inspect the village of the province." Said Angie as she inspects the stone and wood furniture of the house, some of the painting and depictions on the wall seems to show them a feathery green serpent flying in the air. The serpent has four wings with what appeared to be a plume on his head. "Kukulkan, Spirit of the Nine Winds. Mayan legends say that he created the world and blessed it with the elements, he keeps the wind to himself." She stroke the painting, dusting off its depiction of the Plumed Serpent and gave Logan a good look at it.

Logan looking at the image however raised a brow to the image. More of his television and movie watching side came back to him once again. "You say, uh… kul- kel? Ku? Kul- uhhh whatever he's called. I call him "Q" or I think Quetzalcoatl. I remember an 80s film where a more lizard like one with a beak and bird wing went on a rampage in Zoo York." The movie he recalled gave him a bit of nostalgia since it was thrill to watch at least for him. Images of horror as unsuspecting mammals were snatched from the towers of Zoo York and swept away. "Maybe a different deity since the movie I watch said an Aztec cult worshipped Quetzy. Not Kukulky." Logan said.

"Actually they're the same deities just with different names depending on the culture that worships them." She remarked, apparently giving him an immense mind blown upon learning that they are the same deities. "I think I have found something here." She picked up a stone tablet on the floor of the private studies, the tablet is apparently carved with Mayan scriptures that Logan may not be able to read but Angie could.

"We found the strange ship stranded on the shore thanks to Kukulkan's great wind, there were survivors, a handful of mammals dazed by the sea and apparently whoever they are, they are in need of assistance. We took them in as slaves to a local noble family in Lagunita, they should be treated well with medicine, food and shelter for them. As for the ship, there is just nothing we can do to it but preserve it here as much as we can until we can find a purpose to it."

Angie's translation of the stone tablet apparently gave Logan some confusion upon hearing of the Slavery part being considered to be kind and generous of the Mayans. Perhaps his television and movie upbringing never told him, let alone hinting, at the ins and outs of the Mayan society save for the exotic tropes they use and plot devices made on the fly.

"Uh. Right so the slaves were treated as equals. Or better since they had free health insurance? And free food? That doesn't sound like forced work that sounds like a paradise. You know like being the only man in an amazonia place." Logan said both with a smirk and a confused look. Although, it seems the legend of Kukulkan may have had slight truths after beating and meeting Anubis and Thoth.

"Yeah tell me about it, the Mayans made slavery not too bad for their time more like mislabeled Social Welfare." Said Angie as she went about inspecting the estate's interior and a map on the wall, it was strange, the map wasn't ancient but rather recent one that has topographical element of the terrain they were operating in with markers for patrol paths. Something was definitely off about this.

It seemed Logan was more in tune with this map. "Wait. stand back…" Logan said with a cautious tone. Looking at the map the pronte seemed to be like a poster, and looked too recent. "Angie look around for anything else out of place… I don't like this. I don't think we're alone out here." Logan said with a chill. Inspecting the patrol paths Logan concluded someone else was searching for what they wanted as well.

"You got it Logan." She immediately went around the estate in search for something out of place as he said however, as she was climbing to the roof of the villa, she heard the rustling sound of a patrol coming towards them. Her ears twitched to the sound of grasses and leaves being brushed aside by someone, the sound of weapons clanging against the plastic and metal equipment of their users. "Shit...mercenaries." Angie cursed slightly before ducking down behind a crumbled wall of the estate, in front of her were 4 heavily armed coyotes, each one of them was armed with an Assault Rifle, model Heckler and Kot G36K with boonie hat on their heads and green jungle uniform.

"¿Cogiste ese cigarrillo de la sede central? Necesito algo ahora." Said one of the coyote in the middle. He was a bit lanky compared to the others with tannish brown fur. His point man at the front then handed him one with a light to smoke it.

"Lo quité de Pablo mientras él no miraba. El pobre hijo de puta está gimiendo en este momento." Said the front coyote who has dull grey fur pattern on him. As he was smoking the cigarette and enjoying the downtime, Angie immediately emerges from the low wall and fired her pistol on the point man of the patrol and immediately snap to the second coyote who was being careless while smoking.

"¡Mierda! ¡Emboscada!" The 3rd coyote shouted and immediately raised his G36K at Angie and unleashes a hail of bullets at her, his teammate immediately bolted to his left and went to flank her position.

"Not going to get pin down like this." Said Angie as she scrambles behind the concrete cover until she finally reaches a more favorable position by the living room where she exited the building's front.

"Ella se está moviendo afuera! Necesito respaldo inmediato aquí!" one of the coyote shouted and gestured for his teammate to move around the building's corner to cut her off. One of the coyote immediately went around the corner like his teammate ordered only to meet Angie ready and waiting for him with a Mayan war club. She bludgeoned his head, dazing him in the process before gunning him down in a double tap.

Logan in the meantime hearing the weapon fire and the sounds of Spanish shouting swore to himself in a whisper realizing that his fears of being in hostile territory were realized. "And here being alone was creeping me out…" logan said while looking down at the synthetic clothes he wore. Some part of him knew he was going to get into a fight today.

Soon Angie and the mercenaries heard a liquid like sound in the background. It was faint to them, but in the silence it seems to be coming from inside of the estate. What they heard next though sounded oddly like robotic whines and mechanical noises. Suddenly a hot humming sound was heard alerting the guards away from Angie.

"¿Que demonios?" The surviving coyote was alerted to the sound and his thoughts race from enemy remote control drone to the fantastic possibilities of seeing an enemy in exoskeleton suit. However, his thoughts were immediately squashed when he saw the crimson red robot wolf with fiery laser claws that clearly told him to disengage with the arctic wolf and run for his life. "¿Que eres?" He asked faintly before turning away from the battle and run as fast as he can up the sacbe footpath to his HQ, for some reasons, he can't radio his superiors, perhaps jamming? Who knows but who cares anymore. Angie took the opportunity and fired a well aimed shot at his leg, crippling the mercenary immediately and got him fell down on the ground.

Logan, as it turned out, was the robotic entity the mercenary had seen. It didn't take long, however, for Logan to dash out of the estate, and begin a mad dash through the thick foliage to catch up with the coyote before he could crawl away. Logan as he bolted through the foliage hacked away at it with grace and fury slicing at the plant life.

He then jumped in the air and landed above the mercenary with a foot displaced to the left and right of the grunt. Logan then grabbed the mercenary' shirt and pulled his face towards his own to let the merc have a fearful look into Logan's bionic face. "Okay pal. Who sent you. In english dammit…" Logan said.

"Ay Caramba...please don't kill me! I got nothing on me for you to take!" The coyote pleaded as Angie came close to him, she pulled up the shirt of the mercenary and found a tattoo of Apep's cult, the revelation wasn't too surprising by this point but judging by the manner of the coyote, he seems new to his job. Angie immediately shove her pistol's muzzle up to his temple at point blank range and prepare to fire, a death threat that anyone can understand.

"Screw it! You know who you're working by that tat, so you better spill the bean or I'll have your brains splatter all over the ground and vultures can enjoy the rest." She threatens him with a growl as her finger was inching closer to pulling the trigger.

"No no no! Please spare me! We were ordered to go on patrol from a fort to the dromon, our comandante didn't tell us much about what we were supposed to do. I think he didn't expect to see you here." He shuddered a bit and winched his face away from Angie's muzzle, fearing that she was going to shoot him out of her impatient attitude.

"Fort? What fort? Where is it?" She questions him, poking the muzzle of the gun closer to his head.

"It's a Conquistador Fort! 16th century from the look of it. We have our base there and our comandante is coordinating an excavation effort from there. That's all I know." Said the mercenary as he winched further away from Angie. He muttered, in Spanish again, praying that he would live through the ordeal before he finally heard the deafening sound of Angie's pistol shot somewhere. He fell to the ground from a heart attack and anxiety strike.

Turns out, Angie's bullet was aimed to graze him slightly and struck the ground harmlessly, the coyote would live for now but it would be wise not to cross her path again. Angie then proceeds to strip them of their weapons and equipment. While working on him, she happens to find a map detailing the route they were to take and the excavation site deep in the jungle around 6 kilometers away from the fort.

Logan during the whole ordeal came to respect angie more seeing her aggressive side, and gulped. He scratched the back of his head, and made a throat clearing sound. "Not sure if the poor guy was more afraid of me or you Angie. Never thought you had that side to you. Only in bed." Logan said with a nervous snicker. He however looked to the map and took a glance of the fort followed by the brighter part of his optic, acting as a pupil, to look of to the excavation site. It seems his hud was also able to for out various strategies for battle. One such being a plan to remain stealthy and proceed straight to the excavation pain, another to sneak into the fort signaled by a blue snaking arrow and raiding the place for weapons and supplies with his hud showing simplistic weapon logos in grey and black. "Okay it looks like my plans are limited to a stealth game. Which is hard since my frame is red." Hus optic squinted however thinking of the other uses for his liquid metal. "Wait. Unless I…"

Logan reached to the ground, and placed a flattened hand on the soil. Some pieces of grass and fallen leaves are present, but seemed to aid to his idea. He then let some of the liquid metal pour out from underneath his armor, and then immediately rise back up his arm. THe shiny chrome armor then turned brown, and began to imitate the ground with simulated pieces of grass and leaves making him blend it. It faded and tapered off leaving the rest of him red, but he reside a digital eyebrow to Angie. "How about this for sneaking? I can mimic everything around me!" Logan said sounding excited about an ability his body can do now. It seemed he finally may be getting acquainted to it much to Angie's relief.

Angie's expression lighten up at Logan's development and his ability. "Oh yeah you can do that to sneak inside. But of course I'll need some camouflage gear to do that since well...I'm not covered in liquid metal that can impersonate others." She shrugged and looked back down at herself before went out to pick up some camouflage net from the mercenaries and put it over herself. "I think this should do considering what we have to work with." She said as she puts real leaves and vegetation on the net to cover herself in the jungle. "Let's go, the fort shouldn't be too far out." She patted his back and went up the footpath with Logan towards the fort to search out the excavation process.


	2. Chapter 2: Conquistador Fort

Chapter 2: Conquistador Fort

Employment as a mercenary would give one's name a variety of names and titles. Some would call him a killer with neither morality nor soul; still, others would regard him as a brave warrior with riches in his crosshair. However, a soldier remains a soldier, the lone patrol of the Brotherhood of Apep was making his way trekking on familiar patrol pattern with a bored look and less than enthusiastic demeanor guiding his work procedures.

Some moments ago, he had successfully contracted the ire of his employer, being scorned at was one thing, but being demoted to the rank of a grunt and forced to do menial tasks all in one day was a conga of humiliation. Now he is stuck with traversing jungle environment with dense vegetation and loudly complaining about his occupation's disadvantages.

"Damn that drunk blow hard, think he's the best there is with his golden toilet and penthouse in Zootopia. When I get my paws around his neck, oh I'll show him what happens when you mess with a..." He heard the sound of pistol hammer cocking behind him, followed by a female voice of a wolf.

"A tiger? Already learned that." Angie said confidently, holding the tiger mercenary hostage with a single gun in her paw. Consequently, the tiger was forced to switch on the safety catch of his rifle before putting it down on the ground, he raised his paws to the air in a surrendering manner. "And that's what you get for mumbling in a jungle and let a lady hold you up." Said Logan as he deactivated his optical camouflage, revealing himself slowly to the tiger while his liquid metal sunk back behind his armor platings, and confiscated the feline's remaining weapons and gear.

"Thanks for the gear." He said with a proud, somewhat smug expression on his face as he inspects the rifle and brandishing it on his back. Logan chuckled knowing his plan was working out using the camouflage to his advantage. "Don't mention it." The tiger snarled at his remarks, before he himself being poked at by Angie's gun muzzle. "You might want to reconsider your course of action here. Now tell me everything you know about your garrison and its effort here in the Peninsula."

Her pistol was rather convincing on its own, but when wielded by a capable hand and mind with absolute conviction, it became a tool to bend hands and coercion of the weak minded. The tiger saw no way out of the predicament he got himself in, and so he let out a sigh before spilling the beans. "Alright, if you wish. My guys are stationed in an old Conquistador Fort, about a mile North from here. But I warn you, the guys there aren't pushovers and they will shoot you on sight."

"Thanks for info, oh don't worry, your boss won't demote you to six feet under." Angie then hit the back of his head with her pistol, knocking him out in the process. With information regarding their troops disposition in their paws, Angie and Logan then make their way to the Conquistador Fort. About a mile away from the fishing village, sits the Conquistador Fort, built by the aggressive, imperialist conquerors that were the Spaniards, it has four star like corners, signature design from the Renaissance Era of fortification with canon's built on top of the walls to bombard any attackers who dare to lay siege on the fort and its soldiers.

But the fort has never been impregnable, no fort is, there was one enemy that the initial garrison weren't prepared to repel, and that was plagues, diseases of the tropical climates ravaged the initial batch of troops who built the foundations succumbed to the heat and malaria of the jungle, a quiet enemy overran their positions without a blade to the flesh.

Therefore, Spaniards used whatever slaves they can get their paws on to build the fort with their supervision. Now it stands as a ruin, a derelict monument to the Conquistador's dream of imperial glory and prestige oversea, an empire built on the fire of Inquisition and Xenophobia, rotten away when its populace can no longer burden the sufferings and inherent hatred of their overlords.

And yet nothing is sacred, to the Brotherhood, they only see the fort as a location with enough concrete to hide behind. Consequently, the Brotherhood of cutthroats and murderers moved into the fort and set up base of operation there, with guards posted on the walls and automated sentry turrets to fill in for the blind spots.

Conversely, attempts to enter fort must be made elsewhere. One such attempt is the water sewer entrance, with an untapped water supply for the well of the fort, it was perfect for entering the fort. But of course, the cultists were no fools, the mercenaries who formed the bulk of their grunts planted motion sensor along the walls of the sewer in order to prevent intruders from having any bright ideas.

Nevertheless, the sensors and laser detectors failed as deterrent to stop Logan and Angie from infiltrating the fort from the sewer entrance. Before entering it, Logan gave Angie a rebreather equipment, compact enough to put in a pocket and as functional as every high grade rebreathers in the world. "Here. maybe this will block out the smell of this place as well. Just follow me. It's dark as night here." Logan said. As he went under she saw his optic turn green showing he was using more of his robotic bilities. This one being a night vision optic device.

The respiratory apparatus enable Logan and Angie to dive beneath the water and swim their way into the fort's underground sections. Like snakes of the jungle, Logan and Angie slowly crept up to the fort's main water body, the place where the well draws its water from; they kept themselves low, beneath the surface, slowly making their crawl across the narrow body of shallow water and cloaked under its murky surface and their sounds muffled by the body of water as well as their own slow and methodical approach. Logan for the whole time used his night vision to scan through the dark colored liquid, and found himself to be slightly grossed out by the murky water. It wasn't his idea of a tropical vacation, but the job had to be done. It seems though with each of their movements in the water they both caused the green foliage and moss to move around further increasing the disguise.

"So far so good, they haven't seen us, yet. Let's just keep it slow until we reach the main lake where the well is located." Logan said, monitoring his digital real time map, the heading and directions show that they were only a minute out from the main underground hub of the fort.

"Okay, let's just hope they don't post any guards or turrets around there." Much to Angie's dismay, the brotherhood did indeed leave one of their fighters to guard the lake. An automated turret with IFF and IR sensors built into its optical system. Once the two wolves have entered the lake, they found the turret to be of great nuisance as it prevent them from surfacing, fortunately, Logan has the ability to hack into its system and deactivate it.

Accordingly, from under the water surface, he hacked into the computer control of the turret, first he pins point the exact IP address of the gun's control system. A dance of green numbers showed up on his wrist mounted computer, he tapped his talon on the highlighted green digital numbers and was able to gain access into the turret's option list of function. "Okay then, show over for this one." He commented just as he selected the Deactivation function. With the function selected and pressed, a power down humming sound can be heard echoing in the underground section of the fort.

Once the lake was cleared of opposition at the moment, both Logan and Angie waded ashore and took off their breathing apparatuses, Angie's clothing has been wet by the water but she didn't mind it, this wasn't a vacation but a business trip with a more...unusual agenda in mind. Logan as well was wet around his body, but he seemed to have tracked the most of the water life onto his frame. "Blech. Gross…" Logan complained seeing moss and algae collected onto his frame. He kept the color of his body a dull grey, and tried to keep the liquid metal conformed to his now wet body. Once done They observed the underground cavern with awed inspiring eyes, their mouths dropped at its sheer size and grandeur.

The sealing was around 30 meters above them, where a single circular hole of the well casts sunlight down to the dark cavern below, the ominous scenery seems to suggest this is a natural cave, one that the Conquistadors built their fort on as a way to have emergency escape underground in case of being overran.

The first thing Angie did after entering the cavern was to stretch her leg a bit. She lighted her chemlight and took an aimless strive across the floor of the cavern followed by Logan, her guide was solely on instinct, following its voiceless call through the cave's narrow passage to a slope of rocks.

On the top side was a spacious corridor with hints of being built by mammals, refraction of light from the liquid from inside of the cavern danced on the wall, giving Angie and Logan a hint of construction effort had taken place there. "Looks kinda slippery up there, you sure you don't need my help for this?" Logan snickered, confidently showing off his athletic and muscular built to Angie.

"No, I can do this on my own. Watch me." She said with uncertainty hidden under a tone of pseudo confident. "Fine, suit yourself then, but I'm keeping up just to be safe." He chuckled as the climbing competition begin, with Angie making head start, she first climbed onto a stone and then jumped up to a series of smaller rocks, Angie climbed it to the top slowly as Logan kept himself up with Angie by staying behind her as a reaction force in case anything might happen.

"You're doing great for a novice, just don't look down." Logan encouraged her as she climbed to the last rock, still one more ledge away from the top. "Maybe I'm a turtle and you're Achilles." She said, leaping up with her feet and grabbing the ledge with her paws.

"Oh let me guess, you can have a head start while I can only start running after you've made a ten meters mark." Logan snickered and smirked at her sense of classical Growlleek humor. He then eventually make his way to the ledge and was pulled up by Angie. "Hope you didn't break your arms back there." Angie simply smiled faintly at him before giving her confident answer, "Oh please, I'm no toothpick on legs." He patted her on the shoulder and hastily gave her a hug.

Once they were inside the secret corridor, Angie was the point woman, taking the lead with her chemical light tucked on her belt. Along the way, they noticed the carvings on the rock was a mixture of traditional European art style of the Middle Age and native Mayan culture hieroglyphics depictions of the history of the site.

"Look at this, the Conquistadors used the Mayans as slave, they put them to work on building forts and roads, paving the way for future settlers. Needless to say, the natives put their own distinct caricatures on the conquerors." She said, dusting off some old murals on the wall shone her chem-light on it to highlight its depiction.

The mural that Angie inspects showcase the scene of jaguars, tapirs, armadillos, puma and coyotes on their knees with lashes of the whip from their overlords, who were in turn, being depicted as cruel, bloodthirsty monsters with blood dripping out of their mouths, their eyes were fiery red as the flame of Hell itself, but the most striking feature of these pompous, self-righteous murderers were their forked tongues, sticking out their mouths like tentacles hungry for endless blood and suffering. "I have an idea who hitch a ride to this continent with Senor Cortez now." Logan commented as he inspects the mural with the fork tongued Conquistadors. The images gave him an idea that the invading conquistadors were devils to the Mayans here. "So much for taking in mammals and treating them like equals…" Logan said with a gulp on the vicious table turn.

"No, the Conquistadors practiced anything but Christianity." She remarked as they went through the place. It was true in most history books, it wasn't the exciting adventures through the jungle with the noble expedition of Ewerope, but rather a savage and brutal war of conquest and annihilation with the intent to destroy an entire culture and uproot its language.

As the two marched on, they found more murals on the wall, depicting the eventual conquering, subjugation and extermination of Mayan Culture, with their language cut out of their tongue, their traditions erased from their consciousness and their lives broken under the oppressive rule of the Conquistadors. When Angie looked back at Logan she found that both of his ears were dropped down while he looked at the cruel pictures. It seemed that even simple drawing like these gave a strong sense of bitterness to Logan of just how betrayed the Mayans were.

Eventually, they came to a hallway made of carved out stones and one long linear path full of booby traps, no doubt built by Mayan workers. The traps consisted of a mixture of spears thrusting out of walls, dart blowers and spike traps ready to taste the flesh of all those who are unfortunate enough to fall into it. And if those usual tricks weren't nasty enough, there were also other booby traps to deter intruders, namely a pair of pendulums of death, swinging side to side which used a cold steel axe like blade sloped like a crescent. Logan's robotic tail fell down and his ears fell to the sides of his head examining the death traps. Even his optics showed fear as the white pupils seemed to narrow.

The door on the far side of the hallway was unlike anything Angie has ever seen from history books, the crest rested on the door was shaped like a snake, forged from silver to look like a coiling snake with amber gems decorated its eyes. There has been organization with serpent motif on their logos and symbol but none like this one, her experience in Ewegypt would tell her that this must be the symbol of the Brotherhood of Apep.

"Great, we need to get to the other side to deactivate the defensive mechanism, let me handle this." Logan stepped up, he took a deep cyber breath, readying himself for a Herculean task of crossing the hall of death, unscathed! That was until Angie stepped up and held him back. "Let me handle this Logan, I see something you don't in these booby traps." He couldn't raise a word of objection as she leap off far too soon. This was somewhat to his relfie and horror since he had to watch his lover cross a treacherous path on her own.

First she rolled from the first tile to the next, passing the dart blowers just before they can reload and fire the next shots, at the next tile, she jumped off to her left when the floor beneath her crumbles and reveal the spike pit beneath. When the arctic wolf landed on the tile to her left, she jumps forward just as the wall mounted spears thrust their way out to greet her flesh and blood. Logan watched as Angie made her way through the traps with ease, sweats drop from her fur but still her speed was kept at nominal level, his time spent on training acrobats for her was most useful, indeed. Logan covered his face with both hands finding part of him unable to watch while the other part of him opened his fingers over one of his eyes so he could watch Angie move through the death traps.

Just as she came face to face with the pendulums of death, Angie first hopped back when the Pendulum swung to the left, and just when it passes her narrowly to the right, she jumped forward to the next tile and make one last scrambled, she was in safe space to pull a lever to clear the path for Logan to cross over. It seemed after she had pulled the lever the pendulum axes pulled back into a wall to the right and left while the rest of the floor, including the pit was covered with a slew of square concrete tiles that slid over the previous tile and pit to make a safe walking path.

Logan moved his hands away from his face, and made a sigh of relief, seeing Angie safe. Some part of him questioned how the mechanism worked, and just how it could be running for so many years. Instead he shook his head out and went along with what he saw. "I'm blown away! How did you do that Angie?Just how in the heck did you pull all of that off? You were like rolling around like crazy, and jumping! And there was the swinging axe things and you were like 'I ain't havin that since I'm a tough girl!'" Logan said, sounding rather bewildered. Angie simply wiped the sweat off of her face and catches her collective breath, "I don't know, adrenaline maybe. I just followed my instinct and voila, I'm Lara Claws." Logan couldn't come up with his own answer for this phenomenon but that would be left to later. He however muttered under his breath "Yeah and I'm just Nathan Dingo."

Angie and Logan inspect the crest of the snake on the door, and found on its head a series of Latin words inscribed on it by the priests and missionaries, "Fratrum de Serpenti", once translated, it is "Brotherhood of the Serpent" no doubt another alias for Apep in the realm of Spaniard royalties and their empire alike. "You'd think it'd be in Ewegyptain since he's… It's from that region, but no. It's in Latin like some kind of old testimate demon thing…" Logan said nervously.

"I'm not sure, but if Anubis can leave Ewegypt into Zootopia, then who's to say Apep couldn't?" She retorted before proceeding to open the door.

Once the door has been opened, Angie and Logan found a meeting room, with a long wooden table draped in a red table sheet, but the coat of arms on the wall wasn't the signature flag of the New Spain authority, but a dark flag with the head of a red snake skulking out at its victim, in its mouth, it held a dagger to amplify the psychological intimidation effect. "Looks like we've found, yet another collection of self absorbing freaks with a penchant for compensation. How typical."

Logan scoffed at the utterly worthless collection of the Brotherhood's trinkets, from busts to seals and emblems of their order and sub-factions throughout the globe. Angie however, was not as dismissive as Logan as she inspect laptops of the local garrison commander. "Logan look at this!" She called out to him, to which he went over to see for himself what did she find. "It's a map of the region and the exact coordinate of the mythical El Dorado. Along with an old journal by the order's Grand Master Alejandro de Aragorn detailing the events of his conquest."

"May 25th, 1556, the subjugation of the heathens continue as planned, though their warriors have the multitude of numbers on their side, we have the fortitude of faith in our Lord above. The Mayans came at us in arms, with clubs, spears, arrows and on occasion Hornet's Hives. But we always return the favor with our musketeers, canons and the steel of our cold swords. The hundreds cut down the thousands, and soon, the land was brought under the holy light of our Lord and Father Apep. The populace of the city of gold fiercely protect their gold from our righteous hands, their primitive ways shall not masquerade the city's true riches from our eyes. For tomorrow we will march on the city and burn it to the ground and most importantly, our warriors shall claim the relic that is the Paw of Midas as it is called. Once that is done, we will return to the Old World with the Paw in tow to enrich the Brotherhood and fulfill the duty set out to us by his Almighty Apep."

Logan's eyes grew big and he felt his jaw drop. For once he seemed right about something with his paw of Midas theory, but what was getting him unnerved was the fact that a near ancient cult was dedicated to Apep's wrath. Not only that it was still happening. "Uh. So. I was right about the paw thing… But… This unholy church of Apep thing has been going on for awhile now Angie. Like a very long time now actually." Logan said seemingly discouraged.

Angie shuddered and put the journal away from their sights, unable to comprehend the depth of Apep's depravity and corrupt influence over others, to the very point that it has now control of churches and religious institutions. "I wonder what else Anubis isn't telling us about Apep. Because by now I better expect that water snake to be having his own franchise and Political Parties." Said Angie as she sighed out before wandering around the room to inspect the furniture and objects inside it. One of the objects that caught her eyes was a modern radio equipment recently put in place by the current occupants, the frequency that the radio tuned in gave them transmission bursts of excavation crew and expedition units.

"All units, come in, does anyone have an eye on the city of gold yet?" Asked a gravelly voice, it was obvious that this was the leader of the group and just by the commanding tone alone, Angie can see that the various mercenary units to chime in.

"Bravo here, we ain't seeing anything but jungle and mosquitoes. Good thing that Johnny isn't shitting his pants at the moment." Said the team leader on the other end.

"Charlie reporting in, absolutely nothing by the lake, except for some aqueducts, wait something is here…" The team leader of that particular group suddenly pause for a moment as the whispering sound of the wind dominates the radio frequency.

"Charlie, report in, what the hell is going on over there?" The commander asked, trying to comprehend the situation of his subordinates.

"Shit! We're under attack! Something is ripping us ap- tornado!" The radio was then filled with the sound of a tornado and the sound of the wind shattering equipment and tossing mercenaries around the place with some of them apparently being thrown into the jungle and breaking the bones. Before long, there was nothing but silence.

"Charlie come in! Come in damn it! Somebody get an eye on the situation right now, expect resistance and expect it hard." The commander ordered.

"Well… At least it wasn't our Charlie right? Right?" Logan asked while his face seemed to carry much terror. Looking back to the radio he tried to figure out what he just heard. He tilted his head finding only the sounds of screaming men and winds. Powerful winds. "Are freak wind storms common here?..." Logan asked trying to find some logical explanation. Unfortunately the lands here were unfavorable for tornados, and not flat enough for them.

Angie shook her head much to his chagrin and gulped, making a hard swallow of facts and logics to make her conclusions. "No, definitely never seen or heard anything like that. If Anubis exists, maybe they have met Kukulkan." She said in a meek tone, devoid of bravery and general toughness, it was a defeated and somewhat frightened girl's voice just by confirming the presence of Kukulkan himself. "At least we know where we're going." She said before looking back into her pocket and picked up the Scarab like badge, it was a passport of sort. One that Anubis gave them so that deities offer protection to them, denoting their affiliations.


	3. Chapter 3: Road to Lagunita

Chapter 3: Road to Lagunita

As the sun set on the horizon with its light fade away from mortal plain, consequently, the jungle fell back under a veil of shadow, the cultists occupying the fort of the Conquistadors would henceforth, sent out their usual collections of motorized patrols around the jungle to keep tap on the security of the region. One jeep in the lot exited the fort like the others before it, drove off into the Sacbe leading up to Lagunita, the alleged city of gold. The vehicle's occupant drove their 4x4 patrol vehicle on the Sacbe with headlights switched on to full power. The driver was a stoat, the crew commander, an otter, who sat on his right hand was keeping an eye on the road with his eyes peeled.

The sacbe they were patrolling runs along the nearby water source of the Conquistadors Fort, the stag gunner was swinging the turret in the direction of the stream, when suddenly he found something moving in the bushes in a windless night. "I saw something in the bushes!" The stag called out to his fellow occupants as the vehicle came to a halt at his words.

"You're sure? Let me check it out." the otter said, hopping off of his seat and walking to the bushes with a flashlight in paws to inspect the fauna. With the high power flashlight in hand, he shone its light into the dark bushes and shrubs, his nose sniffs the air for the odor of possible intruders. Nevertheless, he couldn't find anything inside the bushes and shrubs. Despite its powerful assistance, the flashlight proved itself to be useless in detecting intruders. Or there wasn't any intruders at all and it was just his gunner's paranoia that got to him?

"I got nothing here you stupid stick head, maybe you should have your eyes checked the next time you walk on the road." He conversely turned around and pace back to his vehicle. However, the moment he took one step away from the bush, is the last moment of his life, as a pair of invisible hands came out from behind the bushes and grab onto his mouth and neck, pulling him back inside for the decisive blow, a thud can be heard, which knocked him unconscious.

"Hey, what happened in there? You're alright?" The stag called out into the bushes, his driver felt the urge to hop off of the jeep, pistol in paws before walking into the bushes to find the commander. "Cover me alright, I think he is just messing around with us. Damned slackers." As the stoat came closer to the shrubs in front of him with the stag watching his back with the aid of NVG equipment, little did they know that another assailant was slowly rising up behind the stag and was holding him at gunpoint.

"Don't you dare making a move. Go for the trigger and I'll waste your brain faster than your grazing speed." Said Angie, now much more confident with her guns than before as she kept the stag hostage at point-blank range, she pointed its cold metal muzzle at the back of the stag's neck, consequently, he froze in fear and gritted his teeth. His hooves were off the triggers, thus leaving his partner vulnerable to Logan's ambush.

The robotic Timber wolf gave the stoat a sudden punch in the face, right across his left cheek just as the stoat was coming around one of the tree. With his last teammate down on the ground, unconscious, the stag panted with his chest heaves up and down in fear and absolute terror, he feared for the worst that might happen to him here and now. "Please don't kill me, I'm just a freelancer... In fact, I was planning to retire even!" He shivers, "Oh I am shuddering with mercy and hesitation." Angie sarcastically said while keeping a firm grip on her pistol at her captive prey. "You are?" He sheepishly asked, the coy child. "I'm surprised that you've made it this far in the cult mass murderers and grave robbers." Logan tsk-tsk at the desperate captive as he tied up the two occupants and threw them into the bushes, one-by-one before doing the same thing to the stag.

With the lone patrol now cleared and their vehicle was still in perfect condition, the wolf couple had an opportunity to head straight to Lagunita faster than sneaking through the jungle.

Angie climbed onto the jeep's driver seat and Logan on the turret, lock and loaded, he swiveled the turret around to check if it's working up to par and thankfully enough, the patrol maintained their weapons and equipment well. "Sweet! It's like christmas only we're fighting against demons and mercenaries. And instead of toys that are safe we get weapons and other unsafe toys!" Logan shouted with excitement. "Give me a bandana and watch how fast this thing turns into a Rambo film." Logan exclaimed.

The young arctic wolf fired up the 4x4 engine before continuing on their journey to Lagunita, she mounted the GPS display on the jeep's handler and set the coordinates on the screen. With the GPS waypoints shown, Angie drove along the road, carefully navigating the ancient piece of infrastructure, unbeknownst to both her and Logan, they were coming up on a checkpoint of the Cultists.

The headlights were switched on to assist Angie's navigation in low light conditions and to disguise the vehicle's presence as another patrol from aerial observations, nonetheless, a close up inspection on the ground would blow their cover at an instance. "Logan we're coming up on a checkpoint, what do we do now? We can't evade them without slowing ourselves down." She said, slowing the jeep down with the brakes but she knew that the guards there would be quick on the trigger once he had a glimpse of their faces.

"Just punch right through them! We can't slow down now!" Logan shouted just as he locked and loaded his turret. He then swiveled his turret towards the checkpoint and open fire a hail of bullets at the CP's guards. Consequently, Angie hit the gas and accelerates her jeep towards the CP. The vehicle sped up and gain momentum towards the checkpoint, and the guards there in turn, quickly turn their weapons at the driver's seat and the gunner on the rear of the vehicle. They began to open fire on the jeep to stop it with a desperate resolve as if they were afraid, hesitation took hold as they are unable to get a straight shot on them.

With bullets shattering glasses of parked vehicles, dropping roaming guards and detonating drums of oil, Logan threw the CP into total disarray as the patrolling guards dived for cover to protect themselves. Angie came speeding through the checkpoint and knocked the wooden barrier down and left them dazed by her sudden assault, surviving garrison troops opened fire on the fleeing jeep while the communication officer radioed their fellow patrols for assistance. Soon enough, other assets of the Cultists were zeroing in on Angie's jeep at full speed and even one helicopter swooping in low to keep a bird eye view on the stolen vehicle.

"Here they come Logan, you might want to check our ammo." Angie said, taking a peek into the rear view mirror on her jeep, her boyfriend would then swing the turret around and aim it to the rear of the jeep. As the cultists came in close to them, Logan opened fire and direct the hail of bullets into the engine block of the other jeeps. The bullets penetrated the engine block, causing the pursuing vehicles to sputter and smoke column began to rise from the vehicle's engine, the driver knew that any more pushes for his jeep to go after the two would mean his demise. He pulled over to the road and shut off the engine, thus, effectively throwing him off of the chase. "Yeah get some! Woo! This is nuts, and I'm actually having a terrifyingly good time with it!" Logan howled in excitement feeling as sense of adrenaline push through him.

The remaining jeeps and helicopter pushed on, with Logan continuing to fire his turret at the helo first, aiming directly for the engine block of the sleek black helicopter, then its spotlight before finally going for the cockpit with his bullets killing the pilot and co pilot. The now pilot less vehicle began to crash down into the jungle and exploded into a huge fireball. Logan seeing the explosion winced, but looked down at Angie who was still diving. "Did you see that! That was like a million dollar helicopter! These guys have money,and I just wasted a bit of it!" Logan shouted still in an excited way.

With the pursuers down to a quarter of their strength, hopes are high as Angie could see fewer vehicles behind them. But soon, her hope was diminished almost instantly when she saw that the cultists pulled over their vehicle and in front of her was a bridge, blown off by controlled demolition. "Uhh Logan, you're seeing this?" She asked, anxiously still having her foot on the gas and she felt herself petrified by the sight of impending death. "What?" He turned around and saw the gaping cliff in front of him and his mouth dropped in awe. He was going to die, he thought, until he saw a ramp, created by the explosion, an idea sprung into his head.

"Aim for the ram on your right! Hit the gas and don't stop!" He instructed her, "Are you crazy?" she yelled back at him. "Just trust me! This works in the movies!" He returned. Angie reluctantly punched the gas to the limit and accelerate the vehicle, the speeding vehicle came up to the ramp and soon was launched up into the sky, passing over the blown up mid section of the wooden bridge and landed on the dirt road on the other side, leaving them to reach Lagunita without further resistance on the road.

Logan after feeling the impact of the landing grunted while the massive vibration of the full landing caused his body to feel a violent sense of shock. His teeth grit and his closed his eyes tightly. The adrenaline built up in him gave him a shaking feeling. "Holy- we just- you- Did? I FREAKING LOVE YOU ANGIE!" Logan shouted as he howled in an uncoordinated feeling more excitement knowing they accomplished a near impossible feat.

Angie howled along with him as she drove along the road, her heart pounded hard and fast as her excitement seems to know no bounds with what just happened to them. They made a jump and survived it! A Howllywood moment that only the celluloid world can conceive has been done in real life for them. "Hell yeah! We ain't stopping now, let's head down to Lagunita!" Said Angie as she continues down the road, however, as they were driving, they heard the rumbling sound of rotor blades above them. A helicopter was chasing after them and this one was laden with rocket pods, machine guns and heavy turrets. It has a bulbous front cockpit with a bubble like nose section protrude outward where the pilot's feet were. The fuselage was long and large enough to store around 50 passengers but this helicopter has two stub wings on both sides, each one sporting a rocket pod, a missile rack full of Hellfire ATGMs and a pair of 30mm autocannon.

Logan's excitement soon went away after seeing the massive new helicopter now chasing them. His entire body slumped over and he groaned. "Oh crap… Come on with this!" Logan shouted as he pointed his now seemingly much smaller turret at the massive aircraft. "We just did what all the action heroes would do! Why do you need to spoil the fun!" Logan shouted as his finger slammed on the trigger of the turret. Bullets from the turret streaked through the air and smacked into the helicopter. "Serpentine! Serpentine!" Logan shouted telling Angie how to maneuver the jeep.

The gunship's hide was especially thick as Logan's ammo doesn't seem to make a significant dent to it let alone malfunctioning its system. "Overwatch-4 this is Command, terminate that Jeep with extreme prejudice, you got me?" The commander ordered over the radio of the helicopter, the two stag pilots likewise heeded the order without questions as they switched on their ATGMs. "Affirmative command, we'll smoke 'em before we graze 'em. Out." Said the co-pilot as he aim his Hellfire missile at the two, his finger was on the trigger, ready to pull when suddenly, a strong wind blew over the aircraft, interfering with its instruments. "Ah shit, something's wrong here, I can't control the bird!" The wind blew over them quite fiercely, rumbling trees and blowing leaves down the road in an almost hurricane like manner. Soon, Logan and Angie saw for a brief moment, a silhouette flying over the chopper with wind blasting out of its mouth shattering the airframe to pieces and leaving the chopper crashing to the ground.

Logan for a brief moment felt some of the air leave his lungs, and had to gasp for air. The images though were clear in his mind to the point he felt a very clear and real shudder chill down his cybernetic spine. He looked back to the helicopters feeling thankful he didn't have to be tailed by a massive aircraft such as that, but somewhat unlevered by the slithering dark figure that flew in the sky. "Uh… I think we just got saved by something. It was long and slightering…." Logan said with a shudder. "Please no snakes… Angie did you see or feel that?" Logan asked frantically.

"I felt it too. Saw it as well, no doubt that was definitely Kukulkan, he is guarding this area of the land to prevent further incursions. Let's hope the badge is still a good informant for him to hold his fire on us." Angie said with great apprehension in her voice, the jeep was reaching a narrow pathway where the Sacbe was cut off, there was no pave road beyond this point for them and they will have to continue on foot from this point onward, deep into the jungle of the Yucatan Peninsula. "Looks like this is as far as we can go on a jeep, let's cross that bridge, hopefully it's still strong enough for us especially the middle." She sighed out before taking a careful tentative step on a wooden plank of the suspension bridge. The plank was old, rotting away under sun and rain with moss now covering its surface and Angie's paw pad could feel the wet, cold moss on her feet.

Logan waited for Angie to crawl first, but had to grind his now robotic teeth back and forth seeing the trip make one treacherous turn after the other. Now Angie's life was hanging by a thin rope. The almost literal irony only made Logan's heart race more. "Okay this thing won't hold the two of us. I'll just stand back here while you continue walking. And I'll uh…" Logan pondered on how he could help with this situation. He grabs the two sides of the ropes and held onto them tightly hoping he could support the bridge a little more for Angie. "Hurry up! You're sexy, but I don't think the bridge appreciates you!" Logan shouted.

"Haha, very funny. Hang on tight Logan, it could come apart any moment now." Angie replies as she walks up to the middle of the bridge, the creaking sound of old wood has become louder and more noticeable as they travel further. Soon, one of Angie's foot snapped and the wooden planks underneath her fell off, she fell down into the river stream below but survive the fall. "Logan! Logan!" She shouted and struggle to swim against the current of the violent river. "Get to the otherside! I'll meet you there! Somehow…" She shouted to him one last time with an instruction in mind, but the current was washing her away from his sight, now all she can do is go with the tide and survive.

Logan in a panicked state seeing her flow downstream made a mad bolt through the forest to try and rescue her. In his panicked and frantic dash though the jungle he hadn't paid attention to the fact he could vault over rock and obstacles with relative ease, and he could simply smash into trees to shatter them into tiny fragments of wood chips. It seemed his mind was focused on rescue mission now. "HANG ON! NOT AGAIN! NOT LOSING YOU AGAIN DAMMIT! PUSH AGAINST THE FLOW!" Logan shouted while he passed her using his robotic legs and his agility to keep at a staggering pace unprecedented. Of course he didn't realize just how fast he was running until he found he couldn't keep up. "Shit! Not good!" Logan looked out the other side of the cliff face and growled. In one leap forwards he managed to jump across the river and land on the other side of the cliff feeling the hard dirt vibrate his body after the land. "Hang on! I'm coming! Other side of the river! I can't forget! Donacdum!" Logan shouted to himself as he dashed through the forest some more to get to the other side of the river. 

Angie struggles against the river tide, the stream itself was powerful enough to render her resistance meaningless but she wasn't giving up anytime soon. She swam with all her might towards the shore, the rocky vertical cliffside offers only the most slippery of options to hang on to. Soon enough, Angie realize what was at the end of the stream, a waterfall and presumably, a fatal fall. Her mind races through various options to save herself, she eventually grabbed onto a rope and a grappling hook. She tied the rope to the hook and tossed it up to a vine that was sticking out and use it as a point to hang on to. "Logan! Hang on to me! I'll pull us up!" She squirmed in place as the force of the river was trying to dislodge her from her safety point.

Logan looked at the hook and nodded. He stood his ground and tied it quickly around himself. "Yeah i don't trust a flimsy vine with your life! Watch this!" Logan shouted. He quickly wrapped the rope and grappling hook around his waist and tied it in a firm knot. He then placed his hands onto the rope while also keeping a firm grip in the ground with his feet. He then groaned and growled using his hands to pull Angie out of the river, and back to dry land where he was. His hands moved down the rope and pulled towards to himself tugging Agnie out of the water's rapid motion.

Angie grunted as she pulled herself out of the water with Logan's help, eventually reaching the safety of dry land once again. She gasped and coughed out from the motion of the current and how dizzy it was for her to be dragged around. She fell to the ground and rolled on her back looking at the sky trying to recover her focus from the movement. "What a trip...suddenly I feel like we have crossed into the realm of fantasies and pulp fictions. We have to keep moving though, they'll be here with heliborne forces to sweep the area." She got up to her feet slowly and began to fashion a torch with a tree branch and a piece of cloth that she torn out of her shirt, she wrapped it on the top of the branch and light it up with her lighter.

Logan panted out more and helped Angie up. He couldn't help, but smirk somewhat seeing her clothing torn up. "Uh. you know that was exciting and all, but you know after all of that adrenaline you're looking slightly hotter in torn clothes… Also I really hope we have a change of clothes somewhere. Pretty sure the others these mercs use is all cursed by now…" Logan said as he got his breath back. He cracked his joints and followed Angie through the forest now trying to plot on what other traps will be set next.

As they journey through the jungle with only the cracking sound of the torch keep them companies and the fiery crimson flower that flutters on the top of the branch their greatest aid in the darkness of Ah Puch. However, a discovery was made when they stumbled upon the gruesome remains of what appeared to be a Conquistadors Expedition, killed on their way towards Lagunita. Angie gasped as she moved her torch around to get a good look at the corpses of the Conquistadors. Their armor and uniforms were bloodied with stains of their own blood and of the natives while cold metal now rusted and broken lies on the ground in a cascade of what can best be described as a battle site. "They were ambushed by the looks of it. The Mayans came in the dead of night, slaughtering the Conquistadors while they were sleeping." Said Angie as she knelt down inspecting the remains of what appeared to be a honey badger skeleton with a bludgeoned skull. She reaches her right hand into his robe and found a medallion on his neck, this one appears to be of the Apep's cult with a serpent's face inscribed on its surface. "Requiescat in Pace." She muttered.

Even in Latin Logan could guess just what that had meant. "Rest in peace? Wouldn't have thought Apep cared for his own men. That or I'm wrong again Angie, and this is all still very messed up. I guess the Mayans were tired of these guys. Rest forever I guess…" Logan muttered moving along the bodies trying not to crush any of the worn away bones.

They found a carnage of unspeakable bloodbath, the camp was obviously overrun at night but the size and amount of men the Spaniards lost were especially small to say the least. "This was a Vanguard force, sent to die and test the Mayan's strength, no cannons or muskets were found here." Angie deduced by looking into the armory tenth where the supplies of Conquistadors tools of destruction were. There was no gunpowder or muskets, not even arquebusier. She went out and snoop around the tent that was marked for captains of the Vanguard element. Inside she found a journal half finished, apparently the captain was killed writing judging by the arrow to his neck.

"May 27th, 1556. We have pushed deep into the jungle of the Peninsula, rooting out the Heathens from their savage hideouts and forts. They raised unholy resistance against us with their primitive weapons and numbers. But the cold steel and words of God prevails over them, pushing them deeper into the valley and perhaps deeper into desperation. Our army expects that by the time we reach their city, El Dorado, they will see the light of God and his holy gospel shall bring them to their knees and throw down their weapons as we wanted."

"Self righteousness, no wonder why their empire collapsed sooner than everyone else." Angie commented as she went out of the camp and follow the trail of Mayan warriors deeper into the jungle and eventually, to her and Logan's luck, an aqueduct was found, aqueducts can only mean one thing, settlements. "This aqueduct provides running water for the Mayan cities, all we need is to follow it and we'll find Lagunita." She assessed the aqueduct's direction and its structural integrity. It would seems that the stone structure can still stand the test of time even after centuries of decay.

Logan himself seemed to look at the fresher waters of the aqueduct with some kind of thirst after all of the exhaustion he faced before. He however followed Angie closely, and huffed out. To him this may have been the more beautiful part of the trip, and yet he thought back to the past where these mammals had died. "Jeez. You know when you think about it this Apep snake guy. He doesn't toy around man. I mean he sent his army here just to die! How many does he have even!?" Logan asked losing his grip.

"Maybe millions, perhaps more, he doesn't toy around when he has an objective by the looks of things. But he sure does like to take his time with starting wars and let things snowball from there." She mused as they came closer to Lagunita. Following the aqueduct proved to be a right decision as they soon stumble across the gates to Lagunita, an arch way over the Sacbe and before their eyes, a city tugged away into the jungle with blocky step pyramids towering over the tree lines.

Logan slowly stepped up behind Angie and patted her shoulder. Despite seeing how crazy and unpredictable the world really was he seemed in awe while gazing at the majesty of the lost city. He didn't yet step in since he thought there was still yet another trap waiting for him past the arch. For a stray bust he picked up a simple twig and threw it at the gap in the arch just to check for another trap. "Angie I have learned you can not be too safe with this stuff anymore!" Logan shouted.

She shuddered upon hearing his shouting so close to her but sighed out anyway and proceeds to walk into the city with Logan. "There's no gold here, no pyramids made of gold or expensive jewelry whatsoever. Someone made a rumor and blew it too far." Angie commented on the rather mundane design of the city as they travel into the streets of town, they first arrived at an abandoned market with baskets and blankets left behind in a hurry, rotten fruits and other goods that Mayans usually sold. The commodities all seem to have a lack of Gold in them this shows that perhaps the myth may have gone too far. "Wait a minute...Logan do you see the plaza square over there?" She pointed Logan to the plaza in the middle of the city where a giant pyramid was seen staggering before others.

Logan's eyes raised to sit level with the giant pyramid she was pointing to. His head seemed to tilt though confused to what made this one so special besides it being larger. Everything here was a mystery to him, and the fact he was exploring a lost city city granted him a blinding sense of wonder that blocked out what the issue was about the single pyramid. "Yeah what about it though? Its big. Much bigger than the rest." Logan said.

"No, look at the square Logan, the Plaza Square isn't just a place to convene, there are cracks on it look." She then proceeds to move some dirt over a crack on the square and to Logan's amazement, her observation was spot on with the dirt and grimes falling down a slit, dropping into the ground below, echoing to the surface. "There is a chamber beneath, and we need to open it up." She concluded before using a club to knock on the stone doors, finding that the doors were in the tens of meters thick and it took an ungodly amount of time to construct this. "No way of blasting through it. We need to find a way to unlock it like how the Mayans did." She sighed out in defeat at this revelation.

Logan shook his head out and tapped his foot on the cracked ground. "Huh. Make a bigger pyramid so they could find this thing better. I bet whatever's down there hasn't been touched yet." Logan said as he moved around the town. He allowed his eyes to display a cyan blue square grid pattern to scan. "Call it a hunch Angie, but I'm going to scan for a little puzzle here. Well not so little since we are changing history. You mainly I just do the action stuff." Logan muttered while he slowly moved around the square searching for the puzzle they needed.

Angie looked around trying to figure out the first hint of the puzzle before she wanders into the home of a priest, this one is educated in astrology judging by the the tools he has, a staff for formal ceremonies and next to it was a wooden tool made for astronomical observation. It was Mayan Calendar, but not one to predict Doomsday that is. "Hold on. There's something here, of course, this priest was using the stars at night like a password to open the gates." She gasped out in amazement as she reads the inscriptions of the Hieroglyphs on the wall of the priest's villa before running up to the top of the pyramid that was used for the measurement of the stars and constellation. "This must be how they send out their signal." Said Angie as she observes the mirrors that were set up on the pyramid's top, they were obviously made to reflect the star light concentrated on them to form a pattern, an image of sort.

Logan followed Angie up to the top of the pyramid and did the natural action by looking up at the night sky. He of course tried to figure out what the riddle was, but he found he was always unwise when trying to solve a simple riddle. "Okay so magnifying glasses powered by starlight? A bit different than frying ants in the sun on a hot day, but whatever." Logan positioned himself at one of the massive lenses and looked to the ground where the beam of light had concentrated into a small circle. "Sheesh. Of all the things not to get rotten by age. This is pretty focused, and powerful as well. Now where do I pointed this mess?" Logan asked squinting to the cracks again.

"Alright let's see." She took a look at the mural depiction on the ground, it would seem the glasses were positioned in a constellation like positions, zig-zagging around and they have to align the starlight somewhere. "Oh my God, it's Kukulkan's constellation in the night sky. No wonder why it is done at night only." She commented and began to align the glasses with Logan, first, she rotates one of the glass around, aligning the starlight it captured with Logan's own before going to the other. Eventually, they created the patterns of Kukulkan's constellation with the beam shining on a large stone structure to the right of the plaza, the structure was looking Eastward, towards the new sun of a new day.

Logan's ears perked up in a surprised manner, and as such he chuckled amused, and pleasantly surprised for once by the turn of a surprising event. Looking at the wall where the lights alleged he watched closely to see what could happen next. "Huh. Neat. Didn't' even realize the lights were focus on the wall until the shape formed. You know of a snake..." Logan said with a shudder. It seems the Ewegytian trip had scarred him due to the snakes.

"Good thing that this serpent is friendlier than the one we found in the sands." Said Angie as she went with Logan towards the highlighted structure, climbing down the pyramid was fast and easy, but when Logan and Angie had to climb up the steps of a stone structure, it was especially painful and gruelling to say the least. "Gosh, we better get used to these running and climbing." Said Angie as she got to the entrance of the structure. Inside they found what appears to be a diorama with the craftsmanship of Bisontine Empire decorating the gold and sapphire of the diorama, it was apparently a map of the Earth, with Constantinople being highlighted by the golden domes of Hagia Sophia. The ocean was painted sapphire blue with the landmass of the Known World highlighted with either green for the Ewerope continent, tannish gold for the desert of North Africa and the Levant or brown for Asia Minor. "An entire story of their travel, condensed into one diorama. Show don't tell obviously." She said, still amazed by the craftsmanship on display. As she went to the end of the room she saw a canal connecting the water flow from the aqueduct into the diorama canal that highlight the dromon's journey.

Logan himself seemed to be perplexed by the craftsman work, but the engineering involved to make this artwork. It seemed almost like a living piece of work to his eyes, and yet he couldn't explain how it worked. "I change my mind this is much better change than drowning, and getting shot at. Or snakes…" Logan muttered. He followed closely behind Angie and looked into the canal, and then back up at the ceiling where the watery refraction danced on the ceiling in a blue hue. He then saw a scale model of the dromon that had been displayed. "Oh neat. It's a tiny, and very detailed, ship. This doesn't look like slave labour these guys were treated as heroes…" Logan said.

"Not quite sure if heroes was the right word. But...I think this must be how they operate the opening and closing mechanism." Said Angie as she went to check a stone crank nearby. She heard the sound of running water still flowing in one of the aqueducts.

Her instincts told her to pull the crank and see what the result was going to be. For some reasons, her judgement happens to align with her instincts like the stars as she saw a mechanism under the crank leading to the floodgate control of the aqueduct.

Not only was there a floodgate preventing the waterflow from running into the canal and kept the waterflow running into the general population. "They do know how to build exceptional works of architect." She chuckled out as she pulled the crank down.

This caused the floodgate to flip down and let the water to flow into both the general population and the canal of the diorama. The flooding water then filled up the portions that were seas and oceans, then the Dromon in the diorama began to move in a rail built for it towards the strait of Gibraltar, then it was caught in a whirlpool and spun around aimlessly, apparently it was stuck on purpose to prevent the puzzle to be too easy for thieves.

Logan shook his head out, and bit his lip. "Nope. Not going to work. Looks like we have to operate this one like a board game. I guess we have to use something to steer this thing into the right direction." Logan looked around the room and hummed in thought as to what could be used here.

Angie crouched down on the table of the diorama inspecting its various details and intricate design, she found that the table was elaborately decorated with images of Cha'ac the rain god, Kukulkan, the Plumed Serpent of the Nine Winds. There was a hole on the table itself, stone in design and appearance. It appears there were gears and a porthole to insert a key into it. The mechanism alone speaks of Bisontine's attention to details and craftsmanship, not to mention their adept mechanical skill for the time before their stagnation. "Logan look! I think we need to find a key for this, look around for a key or anything that seems out of place on the ground." Said Angie as she scrambles around the room to locate a tool or whatever that might be useful.

"Okay i got it babe. Key… Need to find a key…" Logan said while in his on thoughts. Of course he was thinking of a stereotypical antique key with a shiny brass color. Something that seems cartoonish perhaps to others due to the typical design. Though his mind also pondered on the appearances of normal house keys just so he could have something more to work with in his mind. Of course he never let his thoughts think outside of the box to what else a key could look like.

Logan then activated the scanners in his eyes to glance around the room. The cyan blue color square grid pattern projected from both rental optics, but a small key shape was placed in the center of the grid pattern. His head panned around the floors of the area. Soon he began making a slow walk as he scanned the room so he could be thorough enough not to miss any space on the ground.

As Angie and Logan searches the room for the key, it would seem that they were looking for a needle in a haystack as there wasn't any hints for them to pursue. In fact, Angie doesn't know if she was right to search the chamber alone. "There's got to be something to follow through here." She mumbled as they went about looking for a key of sort. That was until her fingers found something, a round, cylindrical object on the ground. She looked down at where her hand was gripping, and found that there was indeed a prod in the style of a Bisontine's metal prod or special mechanism manipulator tool. Locked inside a stone structure to prevent removal, the prod was a challenge for her as she tries to remove it as the stone case wasn't designed to be opened easily. "Logan! I found something here! I need your help to remove it though, the stone case isn't giving me an easy time with it." Said Angie.

Logan perked his head up and looked to Angie's direction. The projected grid pattern flickered off. "Oh what? Hagn on." Logan said as he began to run over to Angie. Once he got to where she was Logan saw the object sticking out of the structure, but the structure itself he could not identify. To him it looked like a regular rock. He extended one of his laser claws out of the top of his wrist and touched the surface of the stone. "You might want to stand back hun." Logan said s a recommendation. It seemed the stone at the torch of the red laser quickly turned and molten hot orange from the heat.

Angie hung back a bit and covered her eyes from the laser claws cutting into the rock and the debris that were flying out at their faces. Once the rock has been cut, she gently picked up the prod and inserted it into the hole of the table and rotated it. She saw that it makes the Dromon ship on the diorama moving out of the storm section of its journey, eventually moving on the water powered rail again till finally reaching its destination on the Yucatan Peninsula map. "That's it, it should work." Said Angie. They heard the sound of rock creaking and moving against one another as the water pouring in hard and fast, filling the canal under the city and out of sight mechanism. The plaza square began to rumble, splitting open into four equal stone hatches like a hangar before their eyes as a massive entrance was revealed with stone carved staircase leading down the tunnel.

Logan's optics seemed to have made a more shocked expression as he looked to the tunnel. "No idea how this ancient stone temple stuff works. I'm not going to ask though." Logan as he looked into the tunnel. Ash he did so he made a more nervous hum. All of which he had experienced made him very well sure the darkness could lead to anywhere. "Stick with me. I'll used the night vision. I think I can see farther than a chemical light can." Logan said as his optics flickered to green. He held Angie's hand as he began to walk down into abyss.

"Right, just be careful with where you step, since it's very old and it might fall apart. If the water running is anything to go by." Said Angie as they descend the staircase. She looked around and saw the water glittering from the light on his body and her chemical light. The water current apparently have eroded the stone structure and underground infrastructure of what can best be described as a Vault of sort. "When water runs, rock erodes." She commented, the sight itself was rather concerning as the steps can either be slippery at best and crumbling at worst. In fact, some of the steps below them have already broken down, creating gaps for them to jump over.

Logan due to this felt himself slip up a couple of times while walking. He grunted trying to keep his balance while his feet and legs made uncoordinated motions either wiggling too much or too fast. "J-j-jeez! You weren't kidding about this place being slippery!" Logan said with a grunt. As he continued down the stairs he tried to make his robotic paws fit on the steps of the stairs. However one moss and algae covered spot, and bad placement of his right foot made him slip in a near cartoonish manner with his back behind thrown backwards, and finally with Logan smacking his back against the hard ground after he had landed. He of course yelled in pain and made a tired sounding groan.

Angie however wasn't biomechanically augmented like Logan and so she has to rely on her own instincts and cerebral judgement. She took a step back, hopping one or two steps back from the ledge before making a running start towards the ledge and jumped up into the air, using the momentum to her advantage to propel her forward, she landed on the solid ground at the bottom with Logan gracefully. "Gotta thank Anubis for the reorganized warehouse of the museum, he turned it into an obstacle course just for us." Said Angie as she stood up and observe the area around them. The place apparently has canals and water running around inside it to power the mechanisms. From leverages to cranks and stone boulders, there are all sorts of strange and incredibly advanced Mayan mechanism that would by all means, suitable for their time but never before seen or recorded by historians and archaeologists. The corridor before them seems to go deeper still into the underground, there were mosses and vines as well as tree roots going down into the stone walls and torn apart some others. "Look at that...this place has been falling apart due to over grow. At this rate, we won't be able to record much left."

Logan groaned again, and slowly stood himself up. "Yep… And I have this to thank for a sore back the morning…" Logan said with a groan. He arched himself forwards, and placed two hands on his back to snap it back into place making a loud popping sound. Logan then hunched himself dowards, but turned around to see his fall had made a body shaped indent in the ground. He shook his head out and continued walking towards more of the overgrowth inside of the cavern. "Huh. You know this would be a great place for spelunking. Tourist wise. Just warn about the dangers of falling on your ass, and they should get the memo." Logan said as a joke. Although his back still hurt.

As they took some steps forward towards the end of the corridor, Angie's foot got on a flimsy tile on the floor and it crumbles away, she immediately hopped back from where she was standing on back to the solid ground she knew to be safe. The stone tile fell down into a hole that turns out to be a punji spike pit. "Booby traps, should have seen this one coming. I guess my years in the University aren't helping me out at all." She grumbles when looking at the punji spikes, she had let her guard slipped for a moment and it nearly cost her life. She must not let it happens again. "Let's see how many pits there are in this corridor." Said Angie as she tossed a pebble on the floor to see if there were any booby traps, the pebble bounce on the floor and its impact began to test the tile's integrity to its limit and some of the hollow area caved in instantly.

"Wow! Shit! This place is a lethal weapon!" Logan shouted in shock. He cringed knowing this is where they were going to have to cross in order to reach the other side of the corridor. Logan pondered of what to do knowing just how many traps are over on the other side. He however looked up and saw the plant overgrowth again on the ceiling, and devised a crazy idea in his head. "Angie. You think we can use those vines to use like a jungle gym? I mean like use both hand to climb forwards without touching the floor?" Logan asked curious.

"Yeah maybe we could do that. But be careful, I don't know how old they are and how tough they are right now." Said Angie as she jumped up to grab one of the vine and tugged at it to see if the vine was durable enough to use as a jungle gym. "Okay this one is good enough let's do this." She then began to traverse the corridor to avoid the dangerous booby traps on the floor below them, she glanced down and saw just how dangerous the place was with all the booby traps and punji pits. As they traverse forward, they saw a massive hole on the ground filled with an assortment of deadly spikes ready to impale anyone who falls into it. But with the design being this obvious, perhaps it was more as psychological warfare tool than an actual physical instrument. "Well well well...it seems like they intend to fight to the death in this city, until plagues and lack of population forced them to displace." She commented as she jumped to the solid ground that was safe enough.

Logan as he climbed however felt a sense of nausea take over a bit after he looked down at the death pits below him on his climb. All of them filled with assorted sharp spears waiting for impalement. He swallowed his nausea away, and sighed out. "Shouldn't have looked down." Logan mumbled. He swing one arm forwards and grabbed the next vine loop with his hand followed by repeating the process with the other hand next. After he had finished his climb he jumped down next to Angie, and made a shaken sigh. "Not doing that again… I really hope this place has an exit somewhere. An ancient backdoor…" Logan grumbled.

"Well...considering the place's design, it's very likely that they have designed it. Hopefully." Said Angie as she held her chemical light up to see what was at the end of the hall, before her eyes, there was a massive wooden gate with two barricade bars holding it in place. "Great, another puzzle for us...whoever invented these really have a knack for taking his sweet ass time." She mumbled as the floor below her seems to have hieroglyphic depictions of Kukulkan fighting another serpent of enormous size, one spits venom out of its fangs, the other summons the wind and blew the venom back. "What the? This is strange, beside Kukulkan I don't seem to recall the Mayans have any other serpent figures in their pantheons." Said Angie in surprised as she knelt down and took a closer look at the depiction. "These characters said…'He who rotates the Earth...who spits life and death from his mouth...ending life to recreate another.' That's Jörmungandr." She concluded in morbid surprise as she took notice of what could be stylized Mayan depiction of the ocean.

Logan made a disgusted look looking at the depiction and hieroglyphics. He shuddered visibly making a very noticeable cringe. "Oh good… More snakes, and this one spit venom…" Logan said in a less than pleased manner. Of course he was also confused on what Angie had said. Mainly on how she knew the Mayans only had one snake like deity while the depictions on the ground clearly depicts two snake deities. Logan seemed to have learned much about Kukulkan, but Jormungandr was a mystery to him still. "Wait. This one's name doesn't sound right. Jormungandr… Doesn't sound Mayan. I mean Kul- Ku- Kuku- The bird one. He sounds like he belongs here, but Jorgy doesn't." Logan stated making a raised brow. Something was peaking bot his casution and his interests.

Angie shook her head out at the name, now knowing exactly what she has just discovered. "No it isn't. It's Nordic name. Jormungandr...that's Loki's son and the Midgard Serpent who keeps the world moving." Said Angie as she set her chemical light on the ground and took some steps back and took a photo of the depiction. "Anubis needs to see this. Maybe he can make better sense of it than we do." Said Angie as she took one last photo of the hieroglyphs of the chamber. "It looks like a well over here. Where the water pour into." Said Angie as she examines the round pit in the middle where the various canals concentrate into.

Logan looked into the well and chuckled. "Call Lassie. Someone fell into the well again." Logan peered deep into the well however and made a humming thought to himself. To test just how deep the well was he spat into it. He then listened for how long it would take for the liquid nanite mix to land. "Right, I forgot that's also been nanited… Shit it still hasn't landed." Logan stated shocked.

"That's gross Logan." She huffed out in disgust as they stood there watching, something soon happens however, Angie and Logan saw the water from the canals congregate into the well but it wasn't pure and glistening like before anymore. This time, the water has become icy blue and it emits an odor of rotting corpse that fiercely assault their noses. The liquid dropped into the well and it began to highlight Norse runes that Logan and Angie thought would be out of place in the Mayan world, in fact, they saw a massive Nordic sun symbol highlighted in almost neon light blue color. "For some reason I don't think the survivors were simply Growlleek Bisontines. I think they were Nordic Bisontines." Said Angie judging by the sight of the Nordic sun symbol.

Logan looked back at the runes as well and nodded to her. "Well I'm not an expert on this, but it looks different to everything else here. Were these vikings looking for Valhalla, or a nice tropical vacation away from the cold?" Logan asked, but even he saw the differences in the style between each of the civilizations. "This is getting crazy though. Vikings now? Norse? How did they even get here?" Logan asked with a confused tone.

Confused and speechless, Angie simply sat and watch as the rune was completely filled and a massive creaking sound was heard, she looked up at the gates and the saw the statues and barricades were being removed to make way with the statues being much more reanimated now, the coyote statues had glowing blue runes on their torso and limbs with their stone paws holding the barricade, sliding them out of the way and the eyes glew bright showing them that the Vault may not have meant to be accessed by anyone. "Okay...I'm starting to think that divine intervention may have had a hand in this." Said Angie, she gulped as the gates opened, reveal a room with four causeways over a pit full of the same blue substance that bring life to the statues. She glanced down at the substance and realize what it was. "The Eitr...the substance of life in Norse mythology, the Frost Giant Ymir was born from this substance before other life forms." She commented and walked into the chamber, before their eyes, sitting on a pedestal was the golden paw of Midas, a golden lion paw in fact with a wooden handler at the bottom for ease of usage.

Logan in a very visible state of shock felt his jaw drop down to its lowest level, and possibly discontent from whatever socket joint it had been connected into making it feel limp. His optics were wider now seeing everything before him. The Eitr seems to catch his eyes, but it had also reflected off of his shiny red body. However his eyes slowly motioned anc tracked onto the golden shin object in the room the golden paw. He shook his head out, and had to speak through his audio transmitter to speak due to the limp jaw. "Hey when you get the chance, could you fix my mouth please? I think I might have been too shocked. Also I know that you want to touch the paw. Don't. I've seen the movie, and I heard the stories. There has to be something bad about touching that thing. Either it turns everything into gold, or lifting it from wreck it stands will do something worse to the place around us." Logan said though his audio transmitters.

"No venture. No discover." She protested but in a cautious tone as she reaches for the wooden handle of the golden paws. As her hand was reaching towards it, the ground shook and the echo of voices and footsteps from above come banging on them. "Damn it they're coming in!" She cursed under her breath as she felt the eruption of explosive detonations deteriorate the cavern's structural integrity. She swiped at the wooden handle and grabbed the golden paw off of its pedestal. "Got it, whoever made the wooden bar ought to be commended for his work." She held up the paw inspecting it, it was like a popsicle ice cream. But of course, their exit may not be as easy as Angie and Logan heard the unearthly moaning sound of the dead calling to them. From the Eitr's thick glowing surface, they saw corpses of coyote and jaguar warriors leaping into the air, standing at 6 to 7 feet tall. Each one opens its mouth and show that its interior and eye sockets were glowing with Eitr substance.

Logan's jaw couldn't drop down any further due to it already malfunctioning off of his jaw hinge. Logan made a masculine scared scream out, and backed up from the terrifying sights. He instantly looked at the exit and pushed Angie forwards. "Go! Now! I think I can take these boneheads. Pretty sure laser can melt metal." Logan said as his laser claws extended. He made a slow fearful turn around and glared at the zombie like warriors while his tough appearance was nullified by his loose jaw.

"I'm not leaving without you!" She protested, a coyote warrior charged at her with a Mayan war club in paws, the zombified warrior leaped up at her causing her to flinch and held the golden paw in the air to defend herself, upon contact, the club was turned into gold along with the zombified warrior, a golden inanimate statue. Dead again at best. "Okay that should even up the odds." She said, somewhat taken aback by the weapon she has in her paws at this point. She then put the paw into her backpack, wrapped in cloth to cover it and prevent the backpack and herself by extension from turning into gold. "Follow me, let's head to the West gate of the room." She grabbed her pistols from their holsters and began to fire at the nearest jaguar zombie in its chest. She then made a jump into the air and stomp its head right on its temple to kill it and send its remain back down the Eitr. "Let's go!" She screamed out.

Logan himself had cut down some of the warriors with swipes of his claws. He kicked one of the coyote warriors away and then made backwards sliding dash back to Angie. "Right! Not in the mood for zombification, or getting bit!" Logan shouted. He turned around making his loose jaw shake and wiggle while he looked back to Angie. "And I told you that thing still had gold magic in it! Be careful while we run the hell outta here!" Logan shouted as he pulled his own pistol out. He fired it at any of the remaining gourad spraying blue liquid out from their bodies with each bullet penetration into them.

Angie and Logan would then began to sprint towards the Western gate of the chamber, disregarding the zombified warriors that were jumping up from the Eitr pit. "Guess we know what happened to the dead of Lagunita now." She exclaims, her astonishment and the discovery was rather mind blowing to say the least as they ran into a cavernous exit where the various zombified Mayan warriors came out to intercept them. The warriors were walking a stiff almost wooden like manner with their arms barely able to hold on to their weapons while their bodies were falling apart. At first they stood in on both sides of the cavernous pathway, propping up against the wall like statues but when the Eitr reaches their decomposing bodies, they came to life and exit where they were standing with clubs, spears and axe in hands. "Great more of them." She grumbles and fired her pistol akimbo at them, she aimed for their legs knees and elbows to make stun and flinch them before landing a roundhouse kick that send them flying into one another or the walls.

Logan fired his pistol nearly blindly into the crowd of undead ghouls. As he was a movie buff he did the logical to him of firing into each of the zombies heads. "Shoot the heads! The brain is in control! Destroy the brain the whole thing dies!" Logan shouted as he fired his gun into the heads of each of the zombies. Each shot cracked the zombies' skulls penetrating brain matter, and causing more of the blue ooze to spray around the cavern.

Angie quickly follow the movie's trope and fired a headshot up close at one of the jaguar warrior that was about to strike at her, the jaguar staggered back but to their horror, the zombie remains undaunted by the headshot, it was as if the brain wasn't there anymore to bother the jaguar. "Well that works. Not." She sarcastically remarked and proceed to kick it falling into the wall and continue running down the less prestigious cavern with Logan, but as they were running, an explosion on the floors above ruptured the place, causing a cave in. The cavern began to fall apart, with the Vault now so hollow and compromised, its structural integrity was all but lost and it began to fall down on anyone who's still inside. "Run!" She screamed out and pick up her pace running down towards an underground water source. Angie dived into the stream with Logan, finding that they were being dragged out of the cave by the powerful stream.

Logan didn't have much time to make a comedic remark before diving into the water. He was both too terrified by the situation at hand and the fact this was the next issue to fight for survival in these awful environments. Logan however made sure to grab onto Angie, and hold her close while they were both being dragged away under the stream of the water. Angie felt Logan's arms wrap around her tightly, but Logan himself felt like he was being dragged away by an unrelenting force.

Angie and Logan could only swam left and right, dodging obstacles as they began to see daylight again before their eyes at the end of the tunnel, they found that there was a slope that brought them down faster towards a wetland area that was close to the coast. She tumbles and rolled around on the ground as she felt the momentum and power of the water flow weaken. She coughed out and struggle to get up to her feet from the experience. "You okay Logan?" She wrapped her arm around his waist and pull him in close to her and helped him ashore. She then picked up the radio from her belt and tapped on its button to rotate through frequency before finding a familiar one to call. "Uncle Earl, come in, are you there? I need you to warm up the PBY's engines now we got what we came for."

The Earl in question was Logan's uncle Earl Lupis. Unlike Logan he appeared to be the polar opposite in appearance. He had dark grey fur around his body, but unlike Logan's neat and tidy fur his was more messy which stuck up at random places and at random directions. An almost beard like pattern on his snout/muzzle that had a grey and white coloration was shown on him, and was also very messy. Thankfully his beard was very short however his messy fur distinguished him a lot from his nephew. He was a more medium build, and lot less muscular than Logan, but instead of Logan's commitment to sharp clothing Earl wore a casual red hawaiian floral pattern shirt with loose fitting khaki pants in a tan color. He appeared to be smoking a cigar as well.

He picked up the radio and answered it immediately however. "Uh, yeah Angie. Wait you got somthin'? Well alright! Show me when you get aboard the plane. I'm hanging by a nice tropical cove. I see a lot of birds. All sorts of colors." Earl said as he sat in the grey colored interior of his plane. At the pilot's seat he appeared to have a clear view of cyan blue water. "Yeah and the water here is crazy beautiful. Reminds me of a date I had that got real crazy, and- ech. You don't need to hear that. You can probably hear the engines firing up where you at." Earl said as he started the plane up.

"Affirmative Earl we're heading there now keep it spool up." She then picked up Logan and began to hobble out of the jungle towards the coastline where Earl was. But as they were making their way towards the Black Cat, Angie saw silhouettes of the mercenaries moving about in the forest, possibly searching for them and Earl's plane as well. "Shit...we need to get to Earl fast without getting shot." Said Angie as she make her way through the jungle towards the coast.

"Lacer 2-2 come in over, do you have eyes on the targets over?" One of them asked their teammates via their radio chatter. "Negative, we ain't found shit."

Logan finally readjusted and re-hinged his jaw to speak normally, but he made continuous watch of the mercenaries in the jungle. He made a deadly glare at them. "No, we have to get to Uncle Earl's plane FIRST without being shot. They can hear that thing a mile away. I guarantee that's where they are going now…" Logan said in a serious tone. He re-cloaked himself after a rapid transition from silver chrome to jungle coloration.

Before Angie could speak a word more, they felt a sudden breeze blowing over them, blowing their fur around gracefully. The mercenaries too felt the wind blowing over them but they felt something much more sinister was coming towards them, "Ssssssserpent Ssssssswiftnessss…" Said a melodious and frankly, seductive voice. They saw in the sky a massive plumed serpent gliding in the wind with its wings flapping around, the serpent's body has sparks with wind blowing out of it as its speed increases. It lunges at the first and slapped its tail at the other mercenaries on its left, throwing them flying into the trees. It then summons a mini tornado that began to toss the others on his left flying. "Ssssssslow down." He said.

"That's him...Kukulkan." She realized just by the look of his emerald green scale, the long serpentine body with feather for aerodynamic maneuvers and sapphire eyes. "Let's go now while they're busy, I think Kukulkan isn't in any mood to talk today." She lowers herself and began to crouch run from one tree stump to another. Keeping herself low while her pistols in hand to react to anyone who might come across them.

Logan this time kept up right close to Angie for some odd reason, and seemed to be in a more frantic state to flee from the current scene happening. "Oh I don't think so! I think just by the voice he has a lot to talk about! Just give him a phone and he'll be on a ramble for hours. Just don't let it talk to me!" Logan shouted going in a more frantic dash through the forest once he was clear of Kukulkan's general eyesight. It would appear Logan had something to fear though.

Kukulkan arched his head back up upon hearing Logan's shout and turned his head at where Angie and Logan was taking. The serpent immediately flew up in the air and flew over their head, following them towards Earl's seaplane. "Earl, we're here now let's get going quick!" Said Angie as she boarded the aircraft with Logan next to her. She closes the door on the starboard side of the plane and locked the hinges before strapping herself into the plane's seats. Above the aircraft, Kukulkan was fluttering above, looking down at them with judging eyes, apparently the deity seems to sense something coming from within the airframe.

Earl of course didn't ask any questions after he saw both Angie and Logan's frantic faces. He was talented enough to read fear and unnatural body language to tell they were both terrified beyond their mind by something. Logan and Angie saw Earl flicking a series of various switches over him and on the plane's dashboard. The plane then afterwards slowly moved forwards through the water. The plane slowly began to make a decent acceleration through the water. Logan got himself buckled in at the back of the plane. Earl looked back and still managed to chuckle. "This is your captain speaking. We are currently on the run from something I don't know about still with a possible treasure two of our passengers have and they want. Please keep yourselves seated and buckled while we make a very rough take off. Fine wine and whiskey can be found in the back in the fridge compartment. Enjoy Earl Airlines." Earl said as the plane throttled upwards taking off from the surface of the water.

As the plane was taking off and flying away from the Yucatan Peninsula, Kukulkan gives chase after Earl, the serpent began to catch up with the airplane with his speed alone. His control of the wind causes Earl's PBY to slow down somewhat until the cockpit was flying side by side with Kukulkan's face. The serpent turned his head over to see Earl's cockpit before his gaze was fixed on the window where Angie was sitting, she glanced out of the cockpit and immediately, she grabbed the badge of the Jackal Guards from in her pocket and flashed it on the window. The badge caught Kukulkan's eyes and he flew behind them, letting them accelerate their speed and flew away. "I have made a sssssseriousssssss misssssstake." He said with his voice carried by the wind into Earl's plane.

Earl in a massive fit of confusion let the cigar he was smoking fall out of his mouth and hit his lap. His eyes blinked twice so he could make sure what he saw was real, and not his 45 year old eyes messing up. He slowly looked to Angie, and tilted his head all while frowning showing just the amount of confusion that was toiling with his head. However, as a good pilot his arms were enacted firmly while his hands were on the plane control wheel. Finally he cleared his throat out and tried to think up of some words. "So… we were slowed down by a winged snake… One who sounds like he has plenty of sexy time… and yet somehow the snake was flying next to the plane? What the hell was all that goddamn mess, and all you needed to do was flick a badge?" Earl asked while looking into the back at Logan who seems to be in a fetal position. "Need I say Logan has a fear of snakes?" Earl asked again.

"No...but what you saw back there is asking for rewrites in history books." Angie said as she put the badge away into her her shirt's pocket as she sat down and sighed out exhaustively. "That was Kukulkan...Spirit of the Nine Winds and the prime God of the Mayan Pantheon." She explained to Earl before opening her backpack again to see the Golden Paw of Midas. She found that the piece of cloth she wrapped around it has been turned into golden silk. The moment she untie it around the paw, she saw shiny, glistening object blinding hers and Logan's eyes.

Logan groaned a bit upon being blding by the bright shine of the artifact. He had to cover one of his eyes, but he found he could look to the object again after a moment. "Damn. It was so shiny you could say it glows…" Logan said. He however gulped on the chaotic possibilities the artifact could have. "Okay Angie. Do not touch it. You'll turn to a gold statue. You're already shining in my eyes so you don't need it shine anymore. And do not drop it or this whole plane turns into a solid gold piece and then we all fall out of the sky…" Logan warned.

Earl kept his vision straight ahead at the sky he was flying through now. "That's the real deal? The Paw of Midas? God damn! Well it's too dangerous to sell, or even make a profit on. You realize you have to put that away where the mammals and black spooks put shit away." Earl shook his head and got his cigar out of his lap before it could burn him. "Jeez. No wonder why you two were gone all night. I had to sleep out here on the water. Not the first time, but it sure aint comfy." Earl said.

"Well at least we're here now. I know a friend who can take care of this but I think it's best that you meet him as well Earl. Since he's pretty much a very hush-hush figure to say the least." Said Angie as she wrapped the fabric around the paw again and put it away inside the backpack for safety. By now they were flying far from the Yucatan Peninsula into the open sea. Soon, they will be back in Zootopia and with luck, some answers for their questions.


	4. Chapter 4: Dust of History

Chapter 4: Dust of History

The flight back to Zootopia from the Yucatan Peninsula was thankfully uneventful for the most part, with only an occasional strong wind and some turbulence during their approach to Zootopia due to an unforeseen case of strong wind and cloudy sky. However, for the most part, they were safe and sound in their return. Angie checked the clock and the time was now 18:45, dusk has fallen and the evening was coming rapidly. Thankfully for her and Logan, their escorts were already waiting for them at the airport, a convoy of 3 black SUVs, all of which were heavily armored with tinted glasses and manned by jackals dressed in SWAT like uniforms. Angie and Logan, along with Earl were driven from the airport back to the city's Museum of Natural History in relative calm.

At that time, Anubis, Patron of the Dead was inside the museum's curator office, not to work on clerical duties and handle other strenuous tasks but rather to meditate. He sat cross legged with two large bowls of incense burning on either sides of him, on the floor, there was a carpet that he brought with him from Ewegypt to aid his meditation. He floated into the air with his eyes closed and silently, he remains there when Angie opens the door into the office. "We're back." She said and Anubis opens his eyes, his meditation ceased and he stood up from where he sat and turned around to meet them. "We got the Paw of Midas here, maybe this is the source of the El Dorado legend that Conquistadors went after." She handed the Paw to Anubis who in turn inspect it by flipping it around to see the various intricate details on the paw.

"I seem to recall that Midas washed his paws of this curse by Bachus. This isn't the original Paw of Midas but rather something else that inherited the name." He mused out loud in thought as he put the paw on the table, the paw then levitated to avoid turning the furniture into gold. Anubis sat down on the curator's chair and offer his visitors a seat as well.

Logan and Earl both entered the room, but it appeared Logan had gone back into his flesh and fur appearance. He was wearing a real shirt with a comic book designed print on the front showing a massive green bipedal reptile ripping apart a building. The comic font of the print of his shirt spelled out "reptzilla" on it. As for his pants he was wearing a pair of medium fit blue jeans.

Behind him though Earl entered bearing much of a family like appearance to Logan being his uncle. Earl seemed to have a smile on his face unlike the others. It seems it was hard to take Earl out of a good mood. "So. This is what you guys do all the time? A secret museum place, and a secret service assistance squad? I gotta admit the SUVs you guys got are nice." Earl's face then looked over to Anubis and his eyes both widened slightly. "Oh damn. You weren't kidding when you guys said he's a black jackal." Earl said taking in Anubis's odd appearance.

Logan signed out and scratched his tired face. "Sorry Anubis. This is my uncle Earl. He's kinda been with me since I can remember. He's on my dad's side." Logan said with a shrug.

Anubis sighed out but made no sudden shock at Earl as he casually writes down on a page of his old book. "I see that his piloting skill helps you travel quickly, effectively and safely from one part of the world to another." He put the book into the shelf to his left and ran his finger on the shelf to look for an appropriate book on the Golden Paw of Midas. "Mundh mataa kunt tiara?" Anubis asked in Arabic, at first, it would confuse Earl but thankfully Angie was there to translate his words, "How long have you been a pilot?"

Earl made a sly chuckle. "Well since I've been designing some of the darn things. Test pilot, engineer. Name someone who both can design a plane and then pilot that same design. I've been flying now for about 20 years. Follow the air aviation laws, and all that jazz. Never once had a slip up. Or even with foreign affairs. I've been everywhere though. I've been meaning to take a trip to Ewegypt to see the last 8th wonder, but I guess I'm looking at one now." Earl said as joke.

"Oh trust me Mr. Lupis, you'll see more than just the world's wonder, you'll about to see history, rewritten in some parts." Anubis replied as he pulled out a book from its shelf and brought it to the table, he opens the pages and flipped through certain segments until he stopped at a page that said "Asia Minor's Kingdoms". At that section he ran his finger down the index page before stopping at the one stated to be "Paw of Midas". "I am Anubis, Patron of the Dead and your Guardian in the Afterlife." He said in a casual almost like he has been doing this for so long he has grown accustomed to it. "I'm sure that Angie and your nephew hasn't said much about me haven't they?" He asked Earl.

Earl looked back at Logan and Angie, and shrugged. "To be fair to yah nah, but I shoulda figured somthin' was up after the news in Ewegypt a while back. Didn't know it was you guys guys till much later. Funny it seems you guys have been real busy gettin' into a lot of trouble." Earl said now looking at Logan. Still he didn't' say it in an angry manner, but still held a much positive attitude.

Logn nodded slightly and sighed. "Yeah. How we keep getting into these situations is crazy. First it all started with me chasing Charlie after that event went down, and before I knew the poor guy. And ever since its been me getting nanited, and then going to Ewegypt to find not only aliens exist, but gods!" Logan said rubbing his head finding it was aching due to how much he was processing still.

Earl once again chuckled and patted Logan on the shoulder. "Yeah, well for a robot you're alright. Might need to get the gears turning here." Earl said as he gave Logan a noogie. The two of them laughed, but Earl found Logan wasn't made of fur as before, and his hand was rubbing much of the liquid metal on top of Logan's head. Earl lifted his hand away, and sighed a bit. "You know you've been through a lot? The two of yah. I guess you're gonna need a bit of my help around with these crazy trips. Aint' leaving now." Earl said while trying to keep a straight face seeing Logan's liquid metal go back into place.

"I'm glad that you take things well Earl, otherwise, I don't know who else would help us." Said Angie as she hugged Earl in briefly, patting his back before letting go. "So Anubis, you mentioned that this Paw isn't the real one from the original Midas. How come?" She asked cocking her head to the right hand side.

"There is a reason for that, you see, Bacchus told me that he let Midas be freed of the curse but his daughter will be a monument to her father's sin. For all eternity and his kingdom shall be nothing but dusts and a footnote in history." Said Anubis as he handed to them a depiction of what appeared to be a tomb, a mausoleum to be exact tugged away in the forest and hilly terrain of Asia Minor. A tagline at the bottom of it said "Mausoleum of Marigold", Angie understood right away that the name is of Midas's daughter in some myths but how come the Mausoleum has never been discovered before is beyond her. "How come this place hasn't been discovered before by archaeologists? I mean it's not like you can just erase a structure and say it never existed." She inquired.

Anubis sighed out and handed to them a depiction of Bacchus, or Dionysus in Ancient Growlleek mythologies. The depiction was on a claw plate dated back to around 450 BC. "Dionysus had the place concealed by an earthquake, shattering the top of the structure to make sure that the place will not be discovered by anyone else, after all if the top structure can't be made out then it's impossible to know the place has ever existed. But there's another cause for it." He quietly handed pulled out a floor plan for the Mausoleum, a copy of it instead of the original but it was sufficient enough of evidence for them to understand, the top structure was meant to be a camouflage for the underground areas of a tomb that is an influence of both Egyptian, Eastern Assyrians and Greek designs all in one complex tomb for his daughter. "This is the reason. The only way to access it is to obtain a key, but the key itself is lost now and no one knows where it maybe." He sat down disappointingly.

Earl seemed to be intrigued by these turns of events as indicated by him scratched his beard pattern on his muzzle. "So basically we got ourselves a messed up temple an earthquake one really long time ago caused to be basically inaccessible, and not only that the place has a golden statue that can turn people into gold. Honestly that last part with the medusa spell, but gold is scary enough. Shouldn't this be in some kinda… i dunno. Secret society area 51 basement sealed away by 'top men' in a crate that blend in with a million other crates containing weird shit?" Earl asked.

"Supposed that you find it and have deep connection to trust that it is safe. But my job isn't to store it, we need to destroy it. You see, if you can generate insurmountable wealth out of nothing, what's to say that one's enemies can't do the same in due time? The only way to end this curse of Midas's Golden touch is to return this Golden Paw to the tomb. But further steps has to be researched in order to fully understand the complexity of the situation." Said Anubis as he began to write some letters, Earl and Logan would notice right away that the address he place isn't for anyone on this mortal realm, it simply stated to be "To: Olympus". "Dionysus casted this curse, so I'll have to get in touch with him to understand how to end it." The archive downstairs is updating at the moment, perhaps you can find some answers down there."

Angie nodded to Anubis as she glanced over at Logan, "Come on Logan, I think we can find something there while Anubis is busy." She hastens him to come with her.

Logan stood up and looked to Earl nodding to him. "Yeah I'm coming. Uncle stay here, and maybe tell Anubis about some crazy stories you have. I know you got a lot of them for us at dinner." Logan said as he moved over with Angie. Earl looked over to Anubis, and cleared his throat. "Okay lemme tell yah bout this one time the Cubans nearly shot me out the air after i stole a box of cigars. You'll love this one." Earl exclaimed.

Anubis of course made a surprised expression on his face as he listens carefully to Earl's story of his adventures and hair raising trips. While then, Angie and Logan went down the staircase to the ground floor of the museum, they took a left turn from where they were and headed into the archive. A room with bookshelves and boxes full of file folders on various subjects, these were priceless artifacts to Angie, material treasure is one thing but having records of their history and culture is saving the world from amnesia. She found the place to be staffed with various mammals, all of whom were dressed in Toga as if they were in the Library of Alexandria. There were leopards, tigers, lions, jackals, wolves, buffaloes and other species. "Xéreis pou o fákelos gia o táfos tis kóris tou Mída eínai?" Angie asked in Greek to a tan timber wolf in toga, on his toga's left shoulder was a button with a Spartan symbol on it indicating his origin.

He pointed them to a section with a category board that said "Tombs" for them to start searching before replying with "Στον θάνατο, πηγαίνετε έτσι." Angie nodded to him and followed where his finger pointed to. The dry and terse answer was true to Spartan's virtue of Laconic speeches, what struck Logan by surprise is the Spartan's wolf lack of aggression when speaking but rather a dull tongue but witty nonetheless.

Logan not only found all of this confusing, and just how many stereotypes were just shattered, but he was confused on the languages Angie and the the wolf spoke. Logan knew Angie could speak in different dialect, but just how many made his head ache more. "Wait- what just? Angie!" Logan shouted trying to keep up with the knowledge he lacked. He ran up to her and shook his head out. "Wait that guy was a Spartan! Not an Ewegyptian. I saw the patch on him. I have so many questions. Is this like a place where time is stopped and people from across time can come into to have tea and crumpets?" Logan stammered confused.

She shrugged to him but remains honestly perplexed just as much as he was. "Well if I know anything about Anubis, I would say he brought the souls of the dead with him to the living as soldiers. That Spartan wolf was probably one of the archivist for him. I think." She awkwardly glanced back at the wolf that was in toga, seeing him putting the scrolls onto the shelves of the archive. She browse through the shelves, looking at the scrolls and Roman scriptures until she came across a book, authored by one "Gaius Equus" with a title written in Latin as "Sepulchrum Zoey". "This is it. Tomb of Marigold, Zoey in some other myth in Greek since the name was a Greek name." She pulled the book out of its shelf and opened it by a desk with a lamp shined on its pages. "According to this book, there was a key forged in melted gold for Midas to open the tomb whenever he wants to visit it to pay respect and mourn his daughter's passing." She pointed to the Latin writing in the book that said "Midae maesto navibus iubet dare aditum ad cudendum pendulum filia monumentum." She then found a depiction of the key, a pendulum made of gold that has depictions of Midas sculpted on its surface with his daughter petrified into a golden statue, neither living nor dead. "It's also said that the Pendulum was sealed away inside Midas's tomb, since its discovery by the Bisontine Empire but no one knows how to open it, except that they need a scripture to pass through some riddles. That scripture is missing however..." She concluded but one thing remains unclear to her, Gaius Equus, the author knows so much in his book but how did he know so much is beyond her.

Logan himself sighed out, and rested his head on his arms much like he did at school in the past when he needed to think on his life, and his future careers. Only now his life was as a robot, and one dedicated to stopping deity forces from taking over. "That's so weird how this author knows so much, and how everything is connected again. I want to help, but I don't have that much of a historical knowledge like you and uncle Earl do…" Logan said in a sigh. He raised himself up an looked back at the book with a less than happy look. He seemed shaken that this was Apep at it again. "What gives with this snake? Why is he so evil, and where did he come from?" Logan grumbled feeling now an urge to both cringe at Apep's sight, and to slug a punch into the serpent's face.

"Well you're not going to leave me out in the cold alone, aren't you?" She remarked while digging into the information on the author, one of the depiction in his book was strangely enough the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople with its majestic dome rising up to be the beacon of the capital city's greatest structure. "Maybe you should play Total Claw Grand Strategy series. They'll give you some information on the history of the world in a quick way." She suggested playfully while looking at the depiction of Hagia Sophia, at first glance there was nothing special about it, in fact there seems to be no meaning behind it at all other than a strangely placed depiction with a caption at the bottom that said "Semita ut Lydii arripientes". "Doesn't make much sense here now, does it?" She thought out loud while looking at the symbol drawn on the river behind the Hagia Sophia, it was an Omega symbol of Greek. Truly, the mystery was thickening.

Logan pointed to the omega symbol and squinted to it. "What's up with this picture though? The river and the symbol thing here. That kinda seems to be out of place to me at least. Just one of the symbols over a river. And what about that phrase?" Logan said pointing the cation again trying to piece these meaning together. He began to ponder on if the symbol may have to do with the key they needed.

"It says 'The pathway to Lydia', the name of Midas's kingdom in Asia minor. But I can't seem to understand why does an Omega symbol is drawn over a river like that." She closed the book and kept it in her backpack as she found their source of information on the Paw of Midas's myth. "Let's head back to Anubis, maybe he knows where to start considering he had the time to keep notes of all the events of the past." She suggested to Logan as they went out of the archive.

Logan followed her out of the archives and sighed out. "Man I was hoping it would be a bit easier if you could have figure out the symbol thing." Logan grumbled. He looked around the archives again and smirked. "Don't suppose you have a library card of the deity realm." Logan chuckled.

She chuckled along with him as they climb the stairs. "I suppose Anubis already made one for me. But oh well the guy is mysterious to us in a lot of ways." They arrived back at Anubis's office, finding him to be still talking to Earl with a bottle of Whisker Loch Lomond unbuttoned for their refreshment. "So how are things going Anubis?" 

"Doing well, Earl and I had a splendid time with each other, also I came to a conclusion on where you should depart to next." He chuckled half jokingly while pouring a glass of whisker for Earl. "Considering that the Magister Militum's destination was Tingis, it would be wise for you to come there and pay the place a visit to see if there's any clues to pick up. By now, the place is called Catsablanca." He held up his own glass of Whisker and took a sip from it to relax himself. "Here's looking at you kit." He quoted, clearly he isn't behind in pop culture as well judging by his quote of Humphrey Beargarde's performance. "There is a Latin quarter in the city, one that's been built by the Legion of the Magister Militum when they fled the Empire. It's still there but has seen some influences from the Moorish population and Islamic conversion over the years." He gave them some photos of the old Latin quarter of the city with stone churches that would morphed into Orthodox churches and other Roman Bisontine styled architect like apartments and pavements along the line of Constantinople's pavement during its days.

Earl took the photos and nodded knowing this the next possible region to explore. He chuckled while taking a sip of the whisker. "Right, and like Catsablanca this place should have a ton of nightclubs. Someone in those should have something we could use. Maybe one of those churches for example got turned into one of those. Anything is possible at this point. I'm getting free liquor from the undead deity. Anyways i should get us a passport reservation for some airspace there, i got some skill making negotiation, and I got some contacts to help us out." Earl said putting his drink down. Something said though he was to be the designated flyer.

"Good then do it Earl. I have some contacts in Catsablanca who can offer you guys shelter in the city, just don't expect five stars hotel expenses. For now I will need to convene with Kukulkan." He looked at the two younger wolves in the room and gestured for them to leave for something, rest perhaps would be the best thought by this point. Angie nodded to Anubis and showed Logan and Earl down to the lower floors where the hideout was to rest. Anubis however remains in his room, he opened the window and felt the wind blowing against his face, he closed his eyes and sighed out while his ears fluttered in the direction of the wind was blowing. "You can come in now Kukulkan." Said Anubis as the wind blew into the room with a ghostly apparition of Kukulkan flying into the room and reconstituted into a plumed serpent with seductive voice.

"What makesssss you ssssssso interesssssted in the Golden Paw of Midasssss? Sssssssshouldn't you be asssssssking Bacchusssssss for that?" He asked Anubis while coiling his tail and lower mid-section on the chair as if he was sitting.

"Bacchus's answer will come in due time but first right now I need to know who is the opposition to the mortals I send out." He glanced at the Mayan serpent with a glass of Bordeaux offered to him. "I suppose that you have his name, profile and modus operandi, yes?"

"Asssssss a matter of fact, I do. Hissss name isssssss Hector Gonzalessssss de Granada. Descended from a long line of arisssstocratic family, of Sssssspain, the Conquissssstador issssss out to find what his clan dessssssire, money to continue their Inquisition against us." Said Kukulkan as his breath and wind blew out an image of a weasel dressed in dark combat suits with a serpent badge on his right arm. The weasel apparently had a scar on its right eye and his mouth was holding a toothpick. 

"So...an Old World religious nutcase who is worshipping someone other than a lamb wanting to destroy us. Brilliant. Now we know who he is, what will he do other than the obvious?" Anubis continues asking while sitting down next to Kukulkan.

"I have reasonssssss to believe that he will be looking for waysssss follow and obtain the Paw of Midasssss from the mortals under your command." He hissed at Anubis though the sound was a more friendly and cautious one than actual malicious intention.

"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you Kukulkan, I'll be sure to keep that in mind and thwart his plan whenever possible. Care to stay for some rest?" He offered the serpent but the Mayan serpent shook his head out at Anubis's offer.

"No, I'm afraid not. I musssst keep an eye out on Hector before he could do any harmssssss. I shall keep in touch with you though. Goodbye Anubisssssss." He flew out of the window and into the night sky leaving Anubis alone in his office, he closed the window and locked it up then pulled the curtain over it. He exited the curator office and switched off the light to head down to the hideout for rest after a long and strenuous day.

Logan saw that Earl was watching pawball on the tv provided in the hide out ,but had to sigh. "Look uncle Earl i know you take stuff… Not as seriously as others do, but I don't get how you are so relaxed. I can't sleep." Logan said anxious still about the coming days on the next hunt for artifacts.

Earl shrugged. "Maybe let your battery die out a bit, and see if that helps yah." Earl said. Logan however cringed, and moved his tail between his legs. "Yeah let's not talk about how charging works since its a pain in the ass. Not saying if this is a literal thing either…" Logan said. Earl made a more anxious look, and sighed. "Well i know you're gettin' used to the robo-body still, but I'm sure you're finding a way to work around it all. I mean you kick ass in the police force. The thing with the robot a while back, and the fact I can see you on the tv every so often tell me you're strong for any changes. Besides that you got me lookin' after yah, and Angie. Whatever happens next it can be dealt with right Angie?" Earl asked.

"Yeah I think we can handle it since we've already dealt with a backstabbing mentor in Ewegypt." Said Angie as she nodded to Logan and Earl, she then helped Logan unbuckle his armor plates to reveal the reactor built into his chest cavity. One of the guards technicians in the room then attached the cable into the reactor and fired up a generator supplied by Helga Von Hindenbear's corporation. The sputtering sound of the navy blue generator was followed by the humming sound coming from Logan's chest cavity where his reactor was powering up while his HUD shows him his energy was being replendish gradually from 35% and rising.

Logan made a much needed sigh of relief seeing the charging process taking a much more practical step towards Logan becoming more integrated with his body. "God this is so much better than getting pegged in the-* Logan stopped his rant looking at Earl's disheartened face. "Jeez… It even hurts me to see you like this kid... " Earls said feeling a bit more full of sympathy for his nephew. "You're a real trooper though. You were when you graduated police academy, and when you were tussling around as a kiddo." Earl said. It seemed though seeing that same child now grown up in a robotic body was tough on his eyes.

"The poor Logan got dragged into something he has no idea of, you can say collateral damage." Said Anubis as he enters the hideout and sat down next to Earl with a photo of Hector Gonzales and an attached dossier of the Weasel. "I have some intel on the subject that is hunting the Paw of Midas and will stop at nothing to obtain it. He has criminal ties everywhere with an empire so influential it reaches the Vatican. Be on alert." Said Anubis.

Earl took the photo and huffed out. "Boy you don't even know where treasure hunting has got this old dog. Dont worry. I heard this guy is distracted by shiny objects, and the slightest high pitch sound drive him nuts. Gotta know these things when you travel like me." Earl boasted. Looking at the picture of Hector Earl huffed out. "Not easy to look at either."

"No obviously not. I can wish you luck for this trip to Catsablanca, I'll be traveling to Mount Olympus to meet the Hellenic Pantheons and convene with them about the Dionysus curse." He patted Earl on his back before proceeding into his chamber in the hideout to rest.


	5. Chapter 5: Here's looking at you kit

Chapter 5: Here's looking at you kit.

Catsablanca, the gateway to freedom for refugees of the Second World War, a city of adventures and a molten pot of different cultures mixed into each other. Though the storm and thunder of the war has become nothing more than distant memories of the past, the city still bears the scar of a silent struggle for freedom for its inhabitants in the trying years of the War. Morning in Catsablanca is as romantic as its evening as the coastal settlement bask in the warm almost Mediterranean atmosphere with its picturesque seaside area once built by fleeing Romans, inherited by the Moors and further refined by the Furrench.

In the air, Earl's PBY was flying through the clouds and approaching the city from the waterfront, from his cockpit, he can see the seaside town built in stacked layers against the hillside with mudbrick buildings mixed in with white marble limestone structure of the Furrench. "How's the view of the city Earl?" Angie asked from the midsection of the Black Cat seaplane as they were flying over Catsablanca's seaside, they came flew over a yacht with a lynx basking in the sun on the top of the ship.

Earl looked out of the cockpit and began laughing in an impressed manner. "Say this is the place to fall in love, and get married." Earl said looking at the eutopic like sight of the city. He recalled approaching many runways and cities before in the past. Each in their own special way. Some places giving a good challenge to his piloting skills by pouring fog into the air and blocking the runway, and other times just the sight of a flat field and paved runway welcoming his plane into his destination. "Boy though this does take the cake. Maybe if all goes as well I'll let you and Logan have a dance in the clubs. Let old uncle Earl request a song." Earl said with a kind smile.

It didn't take Earl long to see that Catsablanca in fact has a runway up and its attached airfield. The runway was adequately modern with concrete paveway and a tarnac to direct international airlines in and out of the airport. "Uh flight Hotel 654, we have a clear runway for you at Runway No.5. Please taxi your way cautiously there over." Said the ATC on the tarmac over Earl's radio as he was approaching the place. Earl could see that the aforementioned Runway was in fact clear of airliners and other obstacles that might obstruct his landing. Not only that but there was a hangar waiting to be used by incoming private aircraft.

Earl picked up his radio, and nodded giving a thumbs up to Angie. "Yeah, copy that control. I read you loud and clear. Hang tight." Earl said as he put his radio back down on the clip holder. He then pushed the plane dowards in a gentle descend. The tires of the plane touched the black tarmac, and created a small ploom of white smoke from the tire friction. After the plane decelerated enough Earl drove the plane over to the designated hangar. "You see Angie this prime service I can negotiate for. A clear runway, mostly empty airport, nice runway, and a nice hangar empty all for this bird." Earl said with a chuckle.

"You sure know how to impress, Earl. Maybe you can finally win a lady or something." Said Angie as she picked up her baggage from the plane's racks and stepped off the plane's door into the sunny Catsablanca, she looked around the city and saw the amazingly diverse town has the vibrant classic feel that seems timeless to all. The airport may give off a sense of modernity, but it is the city's architect and diverse demographic that takes the cake for her. "Look at this town Logan, it's like in the movie already." Angie exclaimed while looking at the town before her eyes, her excitement rose and her heart was stolen by the incredibly romantic seaside settlement.

Logan with his own luggage he pulled behind himself nodded a bit and felt a bit more warm looking at the reflective water of the seaside. He grinned a bit and leaned over to Angie resting his head on her's. "Let's just hope this one is as nice as it is now." Logan said.

Earl then got out of the plane himself carrying a green bag with his right hand. He seemed to fit in more though with his clothes matching the vacation setting with his usual floral button shirt. He also had a pair of aviators on his face blocking some of the sun. "Hey you two have fun. I gotta pay the parking bill in person. Not exactly first world stuff, but I can live with it." Earls said as he moved over to the airport's terminal room. It was much smaller than commercial passenger airports, but it still looked modern enough for his tastes.

"We will Earl. I already got the address for our contact in town. We'll meet him at the Cafe Americlaw." Said Angie as she handed a pamphlet to Earl, it was a neon violet pamphlet with a palm tree hanging over a stylized image of an all Americlaw nightclub in town, one with a fancy driveway for the guests and taxi cabs. The architect style and decoration of the front seems to scream Greatest Generation Nostalgia with its Art Deco noir font. "We'll meet you there Earl, see you soon. If you need help we'll give a call to tell you where it is." Said Angie as she and Logan began to make their way out of the airport. They immediately called a cab to them and begin their ride towards the establishment, passing through the markets and intricate narrow streets of Catsablanca.

Logan as the cab ride ensued watched the streets pass by, and felt a bit more crowded by everything he was seeing. The city itself seems to be a nightmare for anyone suffering from claustrophobia, but the architecture was catching his eyes. He placed a hand on Angie's and chuckled. "Don't suppose you know a bit about the history of why this place looks like the movies uncle Earl showed me as a kid." Logan said feeling captivated by the sights.

"Sure I do. But I might bore you with it." She said teasingly while they pass through the Moorish quarter of the city then into the through the Latin quarter of town that they were supposed to inspect. Soon enough, they arrived at the Cafe Americlaw of town, it was a picturesque location since it was built on top of a hillside, overlooking the beach with the lighthouse in the distance, shining its light around at night to add to the almost perfect romantic feel of the city. "Three Dirham miss." Said the cab driver and Angie handed him the money, paying the exact price before exiting. "First it was the native Moors, then the Romans came and build the town further, then the natives were back at it after the Romans left. Then came the Spanish colonists and eventually French occupation." Said Angie as she unpacks the luggage from the vehicle's trunk and went inside with Logan. They found the cafe was still somewhat empty in the day with most patrons were either mammals of the middle class or occasional upper class tourists hanging around the place for a drink or two. "Here we are, I wonder where the owner is." She wonders out loud, looking around, surveying the sight of the bar, she saw a particularly stand out figure, a cougar dressed in white suits with a rose in his right pocket and black bow tie on his neck. The cougar was also wearing a pair of dark trousers that seems to jump right out of the 1940s. "Ah...I think I've found him there." She pointed Logan towards the cougar.

Logan looked over and saw the out of touch cougar. Logan wasn't much for fashion, and never paid too much attention to what he even looked like in public besides keeping a disguise on at all times. And yet he could tell the cougar had a more noir, and classy type style. "Yikes that guy keeps his looks i check. His clothes looks really out of touch, and still new? Must pay a lot to keep that stuff looking sharp. I'll go talk to him." Logan said walkin away from Angie. He slowly approached the cougar not having to move through a crowd. Logan cleared his throat to get the cougar's attention. "Excuse me. You the owner here sir?" Logan asked.

"That I am." The cougar replied in a terse manner as he shook Logan's paw. His voice was a deep, raspy and sounding like he came from Brooklyn during the 30s. "The name's Whiskerton, Pauly Whiskerton. I run this here nightclub for 10 years now. I was told by a certain wealthy contact that I'll be hosting you guys here for a few days." He said looking at both Angie and Logan, noticing the outfits they were wearing, the two look like they were on a vacation and the attire was rather unassuming to say the least.

"Well...yeah we'll be staying here in your establishment for a couple of days while we travel into the Latin Quarter for some sightseeing." Angie stated while keeping her paw on her luggage while shaking his paw with her free one.

"Just there? You would be missing out on a lot of things in town." He asked sarcastically, sounding like he wasn't even interested in the matter that they were working on. He then took a sip from his glass of Champagne.

"Uh well our trip is rather personal. But let's just say we stick to our end of the bargain and you stick to yours. Deal?" She asked politely to him, though sounding somewhat cocky from her tone.

He huffed out seeing her charisma and sense of business. "Charming. I ain't sticking my neck out for anyone." Said the cougar and he offered them glasses of champagne. "Here's looking at you kids." Said the cougar.

Logan raised a brow to this, and sighed out. He got his luggage, and looked around the club. He smiled slightly, and looked back to Whiskerton. "Well you do keep up a tidy place. Can't imagine the amount you gotta pay for a decent maid service. Or janitors. Do you have our room key by any chance?" Logan asked.

"As a matter of fact, I do." Whiskerton reaches his paw into his pocket and pulled up a key for Logan and Angie's room. It has an Eye of Horus knick knack attached to it. The key itself has a plastic matte on it with a shiny gloss that caught Logan's eyes. "Take this and go on the second floor, there's a room with a balcony looking out at sea. I think you two would enjoy it." Said the cougar with a faint smile, he seems cynical and detached from social conversations and his tone seems to suggest that he wants to get it over with.

Logan grumbled a bit, and took the key. Part of him was relieved that Whiskerton was using the Ewegyptian style he had come to trust more. However, Whiskerton's attitude got Logan to give him a questionable glare. "Right… Well take care of yourself Whiskerton. Come on Angie. I want to see our view." Logan said carrying his luggage to the stairs. Despite packing a lot Logan seems to have not much of an issue carrying the heavy bag. Although when he was out of hearing range of Whiskerton he looked over to Angie and huffed out. "Man something really bit that guy hard. He's not much to talk to." Logan stated.

"Tell me about it, from the looks of him he sounds like he has been with the world's losing teams whenever a flashpoint occured." Said Angie as she went to the second floor with Logan, their room was labeled with a do not disturb sign on the door knob. "At least he isn't half bad with his guests." Angie commented as she opens the door into the room, they found an almost hotel like luxurious accommodation waiting for them. The room has a master size bed with a wooden floor sparkling from the extensive cleaning it underwent, not only that but the place also seems to have a bathroom to the left of the room while to the right, there was the aforementioned balcony looking out at sea. "Nice place, he wasn't kidding about his accommodation, despite the cynical exterior." She exclaims as she walks out to the balcony and look at the Atlantic Ocean and its waves washing ashore.

Logan set his baggage in the corner of the room, and sighed out. Angie heard him laughing though as he looked around the room. He made a loud whistle and grinned as he watched the room. He seemed to be thoroughly impressed with the condition of the room, and was ecstatic he was getting treated almost like royalty. "Now this is better! Look at this place. Earl is going to flip when he sees this place since he, uh, lives in a hillside house already... " Logan recalled his uncle living pretty well for himself after taking in revenue for his engineering job. It seemed the blueprints Earl had made in the past got him to a healthy economic level, and allowed him a nice house on the hills of Zootopia that was also elevated on supports. Logan huffed. "Actually I think this is the best place for him to be more at home." Logan joed as he went out to the balcony to stand with Angie. He wrapped an arm around her and hugged her in close. "Its nice isn't it?" Logan asked gently.

"Hell yeah it is, I think I better call Earl to let him know that we got our room now." She sat down on the bed next to Logan, while she was still looking out at the open ocean and her paw was dialling the her CarrotPhone, Logan was given a good look of her back and behind. She waited for the beeping sound to click, when Earl picked up his phone, she immediately call him to inform of their accommodation in town. "Hey Earl, Logan and I found the Cafe Americlaw. It's on a hill to the West of the beach. The owner here had a hotel room for us and Anubis said that we wouldn't get 5 star hotel services." She jokingly said to Earl while swooning over the beach of Catsablanca.

Earl on the phone sighed out. "Well I wasn't expecting old bones there to have the best contacts in the world. Right I'll be right with you. You kids don't go to crazy now." Earl said jokingly s he hung up. Logan however moved onto the bed with Angie, and laughed. "Not sure what Anubis considers 5 stars since I can't imagine what could be better than this. Look at that view." Logan said as he looked over to the window. He then smirked and looked back to Angie with a sly smile. "Not as good as this view though."

"Naughty boy." She chided him playfully before opening her luggage and go over what they were supposed to do while in Catsablanca. She opens a map of the city's districts and quarters, along with the book she took from the archive next to the map and go over the details on the city's layout. She flipped through the pages of Latin writing until she found some lines written in Latin regarding the Order of the Serpent.

"The members of the Order went to Tingis, they set up shop inside the old Latin quarter of the city once populated by fellow Romans. But today, they're not so fortunate, as fate would have it, the city's officials began a crack down on the Legionnaires in the city and confine them to the Latin quarter. They were forced to disarm themselves and surrender their weapons. Cut off from the reaches of their masters, they confided with each other on a place to hide their treasure, the scripture that will lead one to Midas's tomb. The Militarius Laticlavius was the one who knows about the Scripture and is now six feet under before he even spills a bean. I might have to dig his grave up."

She translated the lines and began to understand something in Catsablanca may not be as innocent as it seems, they will now have to hunt down a grave and potentially rob it, unless the grave had been robbed before. "I think the author was a member of the Order, but the writing seems to suggest he has an agenda of his own." She commented while going over the book's various pages and information regarding the tomb of the Militarius Laticlavius in Catsablanca. Meanwhile, downstairs, Earl has arrived at the Cafe and saw the luxurious old timey interior of the place.

Earl looked around the interior of the cafe and grinned. Despite him having been on many other trips, and being financially sound it seemed to be each new place was a sight to behold to him. He walked in further impressed by how well the old time art deco style had been kept still throughout the years. "Jeez. This place looks like it was built yesterday. And I thought Zoo York, and The Miami Beach Architecture District were classy. Where's a fedora and trench coat? I already got the cigars." Earl said joking with himself. He of course walked over to the receptionist area. He held a finger in the air, and smiled. "Excuse me. You know where a guy could get to know who runs this joint? I'm looking for a white wolf and a grey wolf. The grey one looks kinda like me, but more muscle, less age. No beard, and has white fur. They're kinda sweet together. You know where i could find em?" Earl asked.

"Sure, the cougar in white suits over there is da boss. He just talked to those guests of his." The otter receptionist said, pointing Earl at the sight of Whiskerton going over his checkbook of the week and other related information on the financial balance of the cafe and nightclub. The air around him was thick with cigar smoke, in fact Earl can see an already lit cigar inside an ashtray next to Whiskerton while the cougar let the world around him drift away into a haze, his mind seems to be drifting somewhere else despite the sight of him holding a checkbook in his right paw.

Earl smelled the air and made a hearty laugh. "Well this place is heaven. Bad habit my ass if it can get you this classy." Earl joked. He waltz up to Whiskerton, and sat down at the bar. He cleared his own throat out making sure to give his best first impression despite his fur being a mess normally. He pointed Whiskerton's cigar and smiled. "So what does a guy like you smoke? Montecristo or Macanudo?" Earl quipped. He seemed to next be in a foul mood though and looked over the various liquors on the shelf. To his pleasant surprise most of them were foreign.

"To be frank, I only smoke what drags me away from this damn world." Whiskerton replies still keeping his eyes on the balance of his expenses. He closed the checkbook shortly thereafter and put it away from Earl's sight. "I'm not incline to disclose financial situation with anyone. Considering how much any mammals who knows the market want a piece of this real estate property." He grumbled before blowing his cigar smoke into the ceiling of the bar. "Those two are upstairs, second floor, the room with a balcony that looks out towards the beach and the Atlantic Ocean." He said in a dull tongue, it would surprise absolutely no one since the owner of the bar himself wasn't very social towards anyone to begin with, he never even drink in his own table.

Earl moved back slightly, and felt his own smile fade away from his face. He looked around confused after seeing Whiskerton as a more glum and moody individual. Earl was expecting more charisma from the cougar just looking at his old time appearance. Earl stood up though, and chuckled again after a thought had entered his head about Logan and Angie. "Oh God a beach side view with the ocean? Oh boy I better go talk to them in case they are getting busy." Earl joked. He moved away from Whiskerton, and gave the cougar a thumbs up. "Well thanks anyways pal." Earl said as he moved up the stairs of the club. He eventually found the room the two were staying, and gave a gentle tap. "Housekeeping. Housekeeping need fluffed out pillow?" Earl said in a high pitched Spanish accent.

Angie shuddered in her room, she nearly dropped her book in surprise at this as she came close to the door to open it, not knowing who to expect. "Housekeeping? This early, now that's a surprise." She mumbled, when she opened the door and was genuinely surprised to see that it was Earl. "Earl you made it!" She excitedly hugged Earl in and patted his back before welcoming him into the room with her. "Logan and I just settled in and we got our stuff unpacked gotta say this place is just top notch for 'Not a Hotel' accommodation." She commented before holding the book and looking at the map again with Logan. "At least we know where to start looking now, there is an old Roman fort outside of the city, here." She pointed her finger to a stone walled fort located outside of the city limit, the place was marked with an upside down cross, a hallmark of the Roman military encampment. The the upper portion belongs to the servicemen, the bottom portion and center of the cross belongs to the officers and their bodyguards.

Earl examined the map closer, and scratched his chin. He examined each of the designated cross marks noting where each of the units were place in the past. He of course tracked onto the higher ranking members that were placed inside of the fort and pondered. "Ah so we are on a grave rob mission now. I'd wager the high officers have what we are looking for. Maybe a little something extra like denarius coins." Earl joked.

Logan however shook his head out. "I don't know. Maybe they knew someone was thinking that the high ranks would have the important stuff. So to fool people they would place it around the low levels. Unless that's obvious as well." Logan then looked back at the map and looked for something else. "Now just how do we break into this place?" Logan asked.

"That's easy, the place is a tourist destination by now, so no worries about gaining access, let's worry about deduction once inside first." Said Angie as she draws a red marker X on the fort to mark the spot that they were supposed to go. "Let's hit it then. Should be able to dig up something worth the trouble." She said before proceeding to check the ammo of her pistols and put them inside her holsters, with that in mind, she then picked up the book and map as references and guide book for the journey. In her backpack, she hauls some medical and survival kits to help her bandage herself and treat wounds in case if they get into trouble.

Logan himself only had to do the task of making sure his operating system and body were in working order with a self checker. He was still fully charged since he hasn't been using the more consuming robot body, and he had been eating. His liquid metal was in working order and his laser claws and rail guns were all up to par. He still kept his form, but looked over at his uncle who was carrying an almost chrome colored Smith and Weasel Model 629 revolver. THe gun made Logan's pistol and Angie's gun look small being a massive .44 caliber. He seemed to be checking the functionality, and how many bullets he had still. "Haven't used this baby in a while. Let's see if we get into trouble." Earl said.

"Alright then, let's go." Said Angie as she exited the room with Earl and Logan, they hung the "Cleaning" board on the doorknob and left the club, they took a ride by the local Zuber cab towards the fort sitting on a hilltop, guarding the road into Catsablanca. The place was rather rocky with uneven terrain and desert sand being the dominant climate feature of the area, before their eyes, stand the imposing Roman fort that has been abandoned for centuries since the rise of gunpowder. The moat was dried and empty, the traps remain there as a reminder of what has happened to it in the past. Pits full of stakes and other booby traps like oil and fire pit remains there but has been emptied for safety reasons. The fort's door remains wide open for the tourists to enter the mostly undisturbed fortification that once embodied Latin's dominant and Pax Romana.

Logan and Earl both walked in with a nonchalant attitude knowing tourists are allowed in. The only issue bothering Logan now was the fact he was to dig up a grave from the past and see possible corpses. Earl didn't seem to have many other issues though. In fact as he walked in with Angie and Logan he could still joke around. "Okay so we are allowed in, I don't think we can touch valuable ancient stuff." Earl said. Logan raised a brow over t him and huffed out. "Yeah, But we kinda half to dig shooting up. Well that or do a puzzle. Pretty sure that's how this stuff had never been uncovered before." Logan said with Earl shrugging. "Oh of course. I'm pretty decent at puzzles. I had a Roarbics Cube when I was a kiddo myself. Loved the thing to pieces, but This should be no sweat." Earl said.

"Was that back in the 80s Earl?" Angie asked as she follows Earl into the fort to start looking for clues, they first arrived at the Praetorian Barracks where the houses with red tile roof were collecting dust, the condition of the desert thankfully preserve stone structures well, much better than the ones in Ewerope in fact. Angie looked around inside the Praetorian cabin, with her flashlight litting the place up, she found the beds and wooden racks to be in good order for the most part. She picked up an old worn out shield sporting a dark color on it with golden wings design cresting on the left and right side of the iron cap. On the top and bottom of the shield there were thunder rods protruding out of the cap. "This shield looks like it has seen some battles, but not against a sword, it was with the sand and dust." Angie observed the shield, rotating it around carefully to inspect its design pattern.

Earl saw the shield and picked it up. "Here lemme see. Dust and sand?" Earl said perplexed. An odd thought came to his mind. However, as he pondered on the thoughts of the soldiers fighting against a force of nature, or nature herself he began to ponder harder on the deities. Something made his heart jump. "Say. Since Anubis exists… You wouldn't think these guys met up with the god of chaos and the sands themselves" Earl sated with a chilling voice. Logan tilted his head having little knowledge of the dietes still. "Fighting against sand? What are you talking about?" Logan asked.

Angie flipped the shield around showing them signs of degradations, apparently this was because of sandstorms and rusting, natural occurences to say the least. She then let Logan held the shield and went to look around the barracks for anything else that might be of use. "This place doesn't seem to be threatening anyone at all, gotta say, the Romans built these to last." Said Angie as she exited the barracks now looking at the officer quarter. "Odd, there's no other tourists around here and none of the staffs are around at all." Said Angie, as her ears perked up and twitched around, trying to find any sounds and indication that the place is still in normal working condition. Even though the place is in opening hour, she doesn't see anyone coming in to enjoy the ruins.

Logan still examining the shield was too busy admiring the ancient artifact to notice the lack of mammals within the fortress. "I don't know if I should be touching this thing, but it looks cool." Logan commented, but Earl himself scratched his head looking around. "Yeah. This place is pretty dead today. What up with that? Do people not think history is cool anymore?" Earl asked sarcastically moving ahead of Angie. The way he moved in a confident manner suggested he was well into trespassing, and roaming he may go. Earl stopped in the room and looked back to the other two and made a confused shrug.

"No they don't...especially when you're a smuggler." Said Angie as she looked at the floor of the barracks entrance, she noticed a set of pawprints heading out of the place and the depth of those prints suggested that the crook was carrying something, a heavy object to him judging by the size of the footprints. "Logan, look at this...weasel footprints, looks like we have a smuggler heading out of the barrack from time to time. And where there's a smuggler, there's bound to be something of value that he found before heading to a market." Said Angie as she pointed Logan and Earl to the footprints on the ground tracing them to a nearby archive of the fort where records of the exiled Legion were kept and possibly some important notes regarding their precious cargoes. Logan and Earl would see that the archive was a medium sized rectangle structure built from stones, inside the place were shelves of books with leather cover. Each one were easily around 500 or more pages, clearly the place was in the fashion of the Bisontine archive. "Logan can you use your forensic software to trace his footprints and paw prints?" She asked him with her finger pointing to the darkened floor and the obscured tracks that she might not be able to pick up.

Seeing the footprints on the ground Logan took a knee to get lower to the ground to take evidence here. He zoomed his optics to get a better look of the print and sharpening the image of the print to the point he could make out creases and ridges that were left in the foot that made the prints. He nodded to Angie and smikred. "Yeah I can do that. Looks like we have a weasel on our hands." Logan sad. From his eyes a blue colored singular ray of light shot out and hit the footprint before the ray of light split into four separate beams. The beams seemed to be a projection of a grid pattern in a four by four array. It spun around the footprint while Logan's hud showed him various biological findings from the print. Earl behind the two scratched his beard waiting for anything to pop up on Logan's HUD.

As Logan's cybernetics aided him in his search, the police wolf soon come across what appeared to be a secret section of the archive. A walled off section disguised by a clever revolving door mechanism with a bookshelf to ample the believability of the camouflage. "There it is. Damn it! The smuggler got the scripture...or something related to it." Angie snarled when she saw that the pedestal where a book was supposed to be on was emptied. She could tell by the organization and layout of the room was meant to be used for a secret document and now it was stolen from the place. "If he stole it then he has to give it to someone, like an auction or something I'm willing to bet that they headed to the market of town." She picked up the satellite phone strapped on her belt and dial back to the museum of Anubis waiting for him to reply.

Thankfully for her and Logan along with Earl's sake, Anubis picked up the call from his office in the museum's second floor and replied to them in his usual gruff tone. "How's Catsablanca treating you?" He asked them, to which Angie reply with a calm but still urgent tone as she retrace the footprint out to the parade ground of the fort. "We found some leads to a Manuscript but have encountered a problem, a smuggler may have gotten to it before we do and now we're hunting it. I believe that there could be an auction of artifacts and items of the like in town." She informed him. This prompted Anubis to boot up his personalized Jackal Guards Laptop and access database from the Guards Nexus and trace the radio communication traffic of Catsablanca.

He browsed through the various phone calls and other around the city and its market, trying to pinpoint the location of an auction. "There it is, I found one. Address 345A Derb Ghallef Market of Catsablanca. It's a two stories pinkish tan building with a pair of elephant tusks decorating the front. I'll have the intel team forge some fake IDs for you to come in just hold up your phone and let the scanner at the entrance do the work and you'll be in it." Anubis instructed as he typed on the keyboard sending an order down to the intel specialists in the other section of the museum to forge a collection of fake IDs for Angie and her group.

"Thanks Anubis, we'll get there and see what we can find." Said Angie as she put the phone down on her belt before heading back out with Logan and Earl, she dialed up another Zuber Cab to pick them up by the fort's entrance then head off to the market with Logan and Earl to intercept the stolen scripture. Once they have arrived at the market, they will see that the place was bustling with mammals doing groceries, shopping for spices and exotic goods from all four corners of the world. It felt like a scene in a classic adventure movie but the world had changed so much that by now, the market's vibrant was the only thing left of the vintage past and the feel of adventure it once enjoyed. "Okay keep your eyes out, that building with tusks should be around here somewhere." Said Angie as she scanned the neighborhood for their destination.

Logan and Earl both nodded to angie hile they both acted as normal customers browsing through the various goods here. Or at least they tried to. Logan for one being cybernetic under his liquid metal disguise felt out of place in a more foreign country such as this. This was only made worse by the fact he was a cybernetic wolf in a less hightech land. "Yeah. I'll keep my optic- eyes out for them." Logan said under his breath keeping his cool.

Earl however looked less stiff here than the others. Having the least amount of gadgets and pockets on him he looked like an average tourist. Apart from which his experience with travels across the world made this almost like the average business trip his him. In fact despite the situation he managed to keep a slight smile and wave to the various shoppers and consumers in the area. "Place at least smells nicer. Maybe it's the spices. Phew. You guys would not believe the pits in Uganda." Earl said keeping his eyes out for the building. He kept his snout raised up while looking for what in his mind a picture of elephants tusks on two square shaped towers.

As they walked through the market Angie soon stopped her pacing and her attention fixed on a pinkish building, on the entrance were a pair of fake elephant tusks hanging in a sword crossed manner showing that the place was of prominent and important businesses. "Look, there it is!" She pointed them to the building and began to walk towards it slowly to see if Anubis's instructions hold true. Much to Logan's chagrin he would see that Angie being stopped by a pair of security guards at the front door, they were a pair of warthogs with imposing physiques to keep troublemakers away. "Hold it lady, no pass unless you have ID." Said the one on the right, he seemed to have a scar on his right eye with a blue arm brand on his right arm. "Oh yes, we have IDs for the event here…" Said Angie as she hesitantly pulled up her phone and let the guard scanned the ID of her displayed on the screen. The scanner was apparently a laser scanner similar to a barcode scanner in stores. There, she saw that the scanner blinked green denoting her ID was good enough to enter. "Proceed." Said the Guard to the left as she ventured forward, then came Logan and Earl's turns to work their own IDs. "You don't look like the type to go to auctions." Said the warthog on the right as he leered at Logan suspiciously trying to see if he was actually the right type of person to be there. This worried Angie.

However, Earl saw this as well and stepped forwards for Logan's sake. He cleared his throat out and looked to the warthog with his own glare. "Ah. He's with me don't worry. Just a... Little adventure I take the kid on." Earl said as he raised his own I.D. "Of course I'm more for these events. I already got a pocket full of cigars to smoke while some of the goods are displayed up on that stage." Earl said. He looked to Angie and winked to her having this covered.

Logan sighed grateful he didn't need to come up with his own excuse. "Thank god for uncles…" Logan said as he put his own I.D. up. "So uh… Smokings allowed right? Maybe some wine? Snacks?" Logan said awkwardly as he tried to keep us with Earl's much looser personality. He made it look to easy.

"Just get in there and don't fuss it up." Said the guards as they ushered the two wolves up to join Angie. She sighed out in relief as they walked into the premises for the auction to occur, on her hand, Angie was viewing a text message Anubis sent to her telling them to enter room A34, the password for it was "Corsair" for some reasons. The auction there has an impressive list of items waiting to be sold ranging from possessions of the Moorish Sultans like chairs, crowns and work of arts to the more mundane looking but no less valuable such as the recent addition of a Scripture dating back to Bisontine time. "Anubis works great with intel teams. For some reasons I have a feeling he'll bankroll us getting that Scripture back." Said Angie as they entered room A34. With one word of "Corsair" escaping Angie's mouth, the door swung inward by a tall and imposing stallion.

They came inside and saw a room of smartly dressed rich mammals sitting around with their attention beamed up at the stage in front of them where the items were being displayed. Angie and her companions sat down by the rear of the crowd to avoid drawing attention from them while looking up at the displays to see if the scripture was there for the taking. But while sitting there, she felt her shoulder was being touched by someone, a pair of hooves by the feeling of it and she looked behind to see a rather handsome but arrogantly over dressed equine standing behind her. A horse with grey hair and equally greyed mane, he was apparently around her age as well and judging by the flirty look on his face, he knew her. "Well look what the cat drags get here. I always wonder where have you been Angie darling." Said the horse in a thick British accent as he looked at her in the eyes. "Really Flynn? I hope that time you got caught trying to steal a trophy would have taught you something." Said Angie with a slight growl.

"Like what? Hiring a better team? Or better exit plans? Anyway you know what? I don't care, I'm just here to get some expensive items to marry you with and you know what? You should have ditched that cop of a boyfriend of yours. Is he here by any chances?" Flynn arrogantly asked while looking around to see if Logan was nearby, failing to notice how close Angie's boyfriend was, though they have never met before, but Logan could tell right away that the equine was Angie's rival in college and perhaps in some respects, a more laid back and arrogant individual.

As such the comment the equine's comment didn't go over too well in Logan's head. In fact Logan looked up to the horse with a more offended expression. One with a frown judging Flynn to see if he could make a snarky judgmental comment himself. However, Logan just sighed rather dismissed by the situation and pouted silently. "Well i guess it's nice to meet you as well. Or it would be if you don't just slam me in front of my uncle and girlfriend…" Logan stated remaining calm. He directed his question to Angie however trusting his mind with her answers more than Flynn's. "Who is this guy anyways, and what gives? I never even met his preppy ass before…" Logan asked.

Flynn of course took a step back seeing Logan raising his voice in a sudden, the equine looked obviously scared and frightened by the fact that he was facing Angie's boyfriend of all places and they were going to give him a bad time in the auction of worse, Logan might even arrest him for something. "Ooooookkkkaaaayyyy...this is awkward...sorry mate I didn't…" He stuttered and tried to come up with a solution for his inconvenience. Angie quickly took control of the narrative and fill in everything that Logan need to know about him. "This is Flynn, Flynn R. Quintilius Hooverton the Third Esquire. Son of the Earl of Herdington. I met this guy in College and he was my rival and a thief. He didn't take his courses seriously and the only reason he piggyback riding on the Campus was to help him know which valuable treasure to plunder." Said Angie as Flynn sweat and grew increasingly skittish seeing that he was being exposed by Angie for his rather petty and low brow type of character.

"Alright listen I'm just going over there…" Said Flynn as he slipped away to a more distant corner of the room and held up his number to try and purchase whatever that he might be interested in. It was then that the auction began with the meerkat in Tuxedo came to the podium of the room and start the bidding. The bidding was tight with all sorts of prices being pushed by the bidders trying their best to buy whatever they want. First a bed of the Sultan of the Cordoba Caliphate found in Granada, then came a wall painting of the Romammal Legions fighting an army of Mauretanian rebels. But all of the flashier objects were left to fly off to the paws and hooves of other rich mammals. Leaving Angie with the sight of the scripture on display.

"Now comes the scripture of the Exiled Legion. Recovered from the Fort on the hill near the city itself. We start our bid at the price of $50000. Does anyone want to go higher?" The meerkat asked and this prompted Angie to raise her number, making the price going higher to $55000. "Does anyone want to go higher than that?" The meerkat asked, now noticing Flynn standing up with his own number raised showing that he was raising the price they were going to barter. "$65000. In cash!" He declared. Already the price was punched up by ten folds before Angie could even do something about it. But she wasn't going home empty handed, not while having Anubis's backing, she boldly declare her own price that can flip Logan and Earl off their seats. "$10 Million!" She cried out in a sudden, causing the entire room to eye her in awe not knowing if she was joking or not. But the number alone got one of the female participant to faint in shock. "10 million going once. Going twice. And sold to the lady in the back!" Declared the meerkat as he slammed his hammer on the podium sealing the deal.

Flynn of course was stirred by the defeat he just suffered, he walked up to Angie with a slightly angered face and his hooves were cracking out but not to fight her. "That was one helluva stunt you just pulled hun. Hope your boyfriend doesn't arrest you for not working up the cash." Said Flynn in a challenging manner towards Angie as he snickered her and walked out of the room. Before he left for good, he glanced back at her almost as if to show off his masculine stature and backside. "By the way, if you need money, just come to me and I'll shower you with gold." Said the horse before he walked out of the room thinking that she can't quite pay for the Scripture on her own.

Logan bore his teeth seeing that Flynn was still challenging him even by whose body was more well build. Disgusted by this Logan kept his tongue out of his mouth, and kept his mind clear of any thoughts of Angie together with Flynn. Even perverse ones that just made his headache. However, his head was already aching and in total shock by the offer Angie made. It made his heart nearly faint knowing she had spent a life's worth of money in one swoop. He looked at her and made a weak smile. "Uhhh… Hey Angie. You wouldn't happen to have a very wealthy relative do you? Like an aunty, or something because I don't think I'm going to get help from mine with that…" Loan said looking abk to Earl. He was already smoking a cigar to cope with what just took place. "Who ever the hell that horse guy was he needs an ass kicking…" Earl grumbled.

Angie however nervously picked up her satellite phone and raised Anubis on the horn to call him for assistance. "Uhh...Anubis...I hope you take bad news well because...I just bought a Scripture we need. For $10 million, please tell me that you're not going to let me borrow your credit card." She said in a petrified tone sounding horrified by what she had done within the space of an hour of bidding.

She expected Anubis to slam her for the expenses but instead, she heard him talking calmly as if this was no major expenses for him. "Don't worry about it, I got 10 million transferred to your account ready to use. Did you know that gold produced in Kemet from thousands of years ago worth more today when adjusted to inflation and such?" He asked her while wiring the money to her account remotely from his office. This prompted Angie to raise her head up slightly when she heard this. "Oh right. Of course any products made in the past will become a lot more expensive when adjusted to inflation and take into account the production method of the time as well as related costs. Right?" She asked one last time as the young archaeologist wolf stood up from her seat.

"Precisely, since Kemet used to have gold mine in Nubia, the Jackal Guards have access to a rather abundant supply of gold. Near limitless funding that is, but we learned not to rely on it for obvious reasons. Get the scripture and get back quick, I have a feeling that this horse rival of yours may not let you go easily." Said Anubis as he hung up the phone. Angie looked back to Logan and Earl and nodded to them, showing that they were in the clear before helping Logan up with Earl to prepare for their departure.

They obtained the scripture after paying the bill and left the premises, Flynn himself saw that Angie was leaving with the scripture in hand from the second floor frowned seeing that somehow he was losing her by the minutes, he quickly grabbed his phone and dialed his accomplices for assistance. "Cloey, we may have a problem. Yes that's right...we'll need to intercept them, the marketplace...leave arctic wolf alone, she's mine. Oh no don't you start that with me, of course she's into me, I'm gorgeous. Anyway just get down here." He hung up the phone and went out to get ready for what was going to happen at the market. Angie was now walking out of the market with Logan and Earl following her, she held the scripture in her paws to keep it safe. The white wolf looked around for any signs of pickpockets and other scams that might come at her, she held the scripture in front of her to prevent any theft of it might occur. "We're not out of the woods just yet." Said Angie as she walked towards the entrance of the market.

Logan and Earl boh looked to the entrance of the market and knew many of the mammals there could have more malicious intents. Mainly Earl feeling the urge to have a hand ready to grab his revelover at a moment's notice. In fact he had his right hand have his fingers much like an old west shootout. Even more damning was the fact he still had a cigar in mouth. "Don't worry kids. I got you. I don't think scammers will enjoy a possible bullet in their lungs." Earl said sternly.

Logan however seemed to still have a headache as his pained face said. However, his mind was no longer on the fact he had to help pay ten million dollars. Instead he thought more on the fact he suddenly received the money all thanks to a kind deity. "Okay. He's a god. And he's a machine.. Like me. Divine intervention.. Deus Ex Machina." Logan said. He looked back up at Angie and attempted to smile. "So. Now that we are millionaires what do we even do with the money? I never figured this job I have would earn me that much. All I wanted wa to protect and serve." Logan said with a lighthearted tone.

Angie laughed out thinking about the money that was in their accounts by this point of time. Her cautious mind was telling her to save it while her more adventurous heart was urging her to spend them and travel the world. "Trust funds I guess. Honestly we aren't any good at businesses so we might as well just put them all into trust funds and maybe we'll be able to use it sometimes in the future." Said Angie as they were walking out of the market waiting for a cab to pick them up. It was at that moment however that Logan would be called by Anubis, the jackal deity sounded rather urgent and even apparently troubled by some sort of impending danger. "Logan, I have multiple hostiles heading towards your location! Hostile SUVs and armed tangoes bearing down on you. ETA 4 minutes!" He scowled with his eyes fixed on the real time map of the city, the navy blue monitor show flashing blips of red dots converging on the market ready with Angie, Logan and Earl marked in sapphire blue.

"Oh shit!" Logan shouted. When he looked back he saw thankfully Earl had that determined fight ready face. Earl looked down and saw Logan hunched down in a combat ready look. One he's seen before when he occasionally went to see Logan train with his co workers on the ZPD training ground. Even then Logan was determined to act out with an aggressive force just as Earl recalled.

Logan back then was quick on his feet and could easily drive a powerful tackle into his team. Seeing this now Earl didn't need to question the urge to pull the revolver out of his shirt and hold it low. He kept his finger off of the trigger of course for his own gun safety training, but he looked around for hostiles. "I know that look. Yah got something." Earl said pointing out Logan's body language. Logan then looked to Angie and glared fiercely they were about to have some undesired attention. To make his point the liquid metal on his leg pulled away, and turned back into a lustrous silver color while also revealing the shiny gloss red of his thigh armor. The thigh compartment then flipped open allowing Logan to pull his own pistol. "Stay sharp. Anubis just gave the word of hostiles." Logan said keeping his eyes open.

Angie nodded to him as she saw enemy SUVs, all black with heavily tinted glasses, there were also some jeeps following them to assist with armed Mammals dismounting their vehicles. They armed themselves with a collection of vintage Assault Rifles and shotgun and pistols, they fanned out around the entrance and trained their sights on Angie and Logan first and foremost. Seeing this, the crowds began to panic and ran for cover, Angie of course was smart enough to drag Logan and Earl along into some places to hide while the gunmen began to move in shooting up the market stalls to stop their targets from running away. Bullets whist passed them, blowing up baskets and boxes with the gunmen moving in cocking their weapons aiming for the Coffee shop the trio were hiding in. Angie kicked down a table and used it as cover for her and Earl, she then placed the scripture inside the sack and pulled out her pistol and cocked it for combat.

"Move in! Secure the targets!" One of the men shouted, their point man, a lanky armadillo holding a pistol went inside the coffee shop, followed by a squad of heavily armed predators and prey all dressed in black brandishing gas mask and helmets on them. Angie took the first shot off by firing at the chandelier above their heads, dropping it down on 4 of them in one go. "Now!" She shouted and took her shots at the other two that were at the entrance of the coffee shop.

Logan got himself out of cover and fired his pistol towards the entrance. Knowing there was a truck with a gun mounted he needed to keep himself low and into cover taking potshots and blindfired shot towards the attackers. "This would be so much easier if i had an LMG!" Logan shouted while the heat of battle made his intensified emotions grow. Each time his pistol fired it made a loud, ear piercing popping noise while the bullet flew through the air before penetrating enemy armor and flesh. Each time he did this did the same before he needed to reload.

Earl then got up with only six bullets in his gun's chamber. "Yeah I'd like to see you try and conceal an LMG. Maybe that nanite crap can make one transform into a lunchbox!" Earl joked. However with his gun being a much larger weapon and having a much higher calibur he had to hold it in both of his hand before pulling the trigger creating a much louder bang than Logan's pistol. The gun being more powerful fired bullets into the center masses of Earl's targeted assailants and threw them back while cracking bone snaps rupturing organs.

"We need to get out of here maybe one of their jeeps would do!" Said Angie as she crawled on the ground towards to the entrance of the coffee shop. She then made a cover dash towards the wall of it, seeing that the gunmen outside were still covering most of the entrances and police of the city was closing in on the shootout to disarm the situation. The resulting firefight was a confusing three ways battle between the authority, the gunmen and Angie's team. "Alright...we'll need to move to the East gate, there's bound to be some vehicles there we can grab. Ready? Set...go!"

She then ran out making a beam towards the wall near the corner leading to the entrance of the East gates. She was intercepted by a tiger who leapt on her back trying to pin her down, he gripped her neck trying to choke her in the process. "Not this chick you're not!" She quickly rammed him into a pillar to stun him first before quickly make a roundhouse kick around his waist, knocking him down and kicked his chin with her right foot, knocking him out. "Come on guys! We need to get out of here now!" Said Angie as she soon saw a jeep rammed through the East Gates and skirted to a halt at the center of the open air market square. The gunmen disembarked from the vehicle with their gunner still on the turret aiming his weapon at Logan and Earl. They fired their weapon at the police officer wolf first trying to down him as they figured he might be the biggest threat to them for the moment.

Within the intense moment of combat Logan's liquid metal turned a lustrous chroma and sheen away back under his armor platings and synthetic flesh. He made quick slide dashed to the left and followed by the right to keep himself clear of bullets, and fire. He let out a breath of air from his synthetic lungs with each dash as he could feel his muscles burn each time. He didn't bother to shoot back at the hostiles since it would just make his body more prone than before of getting filled with bullets. He saw Earl somehow had made it into the passenger side seat of the jeep while Logan himself jumped into the air in a stunning leap before his paws landed on the jeep's chassis. Logan then made an evil grin while he got the Jeep's main gun ready. "Alright! Finally We get some better weapons on our side." Logan exclaimed. Of course Earl looked at his gun and then the machine gun Logan had mounted onto the jeep and huffed. "What wrong with the revolver?" Earl asked.

Angie quickly ran into the jeep and shot off a few rounds at some of the roaming gunmen around the market as they try to gun them down, "Time to leave then!" She sat down on the driver's seat and fired off the engine of the vehicle and kept her head down in a brace for impact manner. She then put the vehicle in reverse and moved the vehicle's nose back to the East gates before putting it in drive and hit the gas. She launched the vehicle out of the East Gate flying out of the market and landed on the streets. The vehicle skirted around on the streets for a moment before Angie stepped on the gas and drove off faster out of the Latin Quarter of Catsablanca. The gunmen weren't giving up, they quickly dispatched three more SUVs to hunt them down with their shooters popping up from the rooftops with their own tri-barrels miniguns aiming at them, other shooters inside the vehicles rolled down the windows and fired on the jeep.

Logan pivoted the jeep's gun behind the jeep itself and saw immediately they were being chased by dark colored armored vehicles. He grit his teeth together and shook his head to the pursuers. As he placed his finger on the triggers he took only a slight quick scan of all of the attackers noting the overkill they intended to display. "Seriously they are going full gang gangster on us by shooting out of the windows! Was it not enough they had guns on top!?" Logan questioned right as he started to shoot at the enemy vehicles on their hoods.

Earl for that moment took his own initiative to give Angie some breathing room away from the hostiles by unbuckling himself and unrolling the window so he could shoot as well. He got his upper torso out of the window and rotated his body so he could point back at the incoming hostiles while he aimed and fired his revolver in loud shots towards the gunner of the jeeps. "I don't mean to sound cynical, but they ain't going to just run out of gas! They'll chase us all the way through the desert if they want! Angie drive like you're drunk! As in erratic and dangerous!" Earl shouted.

"I hope we won't end up in Mooroccan prison for this!" Angie gunned her car forward with her feet on the gas pushing the vehicle towards the busy roads ahead. She then proceeded to bank left and right erratically to throw off their pursuers. She first took a mad turn into a city park where the rolling hills and trees kept them from being too easy of a target. The jeep jink around and each time it did, Logan's aim was thrown off, and his HUD must recalibrate its targeting to compensate for the movements and various other factors. As she did so, one of the SUVs pursuing them made a wrong turn and fell into a pond, throwing it off the chase. "One down 2 to go. Hang on, we're backing into the streets now!" Said Angie as she spun the tires around to steady the vehicle's steering as the trio ended back on the busy streets once again. "Logan, I see an oil tanker ahead watch your fire around it!" Angie shouted out as she zig zagged the car around the oil tanker trying to use its silhouette and chassis to dodge the pursuers.

The oil tanker provided them all with optimal cover for dodging the pursuing vehicles, but Logan hesitantly took fire again keeping the bullet fire away from the tanker. Some of the images that went through his head of course were him screaming up and causing one of the bullets spark off of the hull of the tanker resulting in a massive explosion. Logan gulped nervously and tried to keep his arms more stead. "Why do you need to pressure me like this now?..." Logan said, but after saying this he turned his attention back to the pursuing vehicles. "Hey woah! What if they shoot the damn thing?" Logan asked. Earl slowly got back into the truck and covered his ears while his canine teeth bit the butt of his cigar. "Well then I guess fire in the friggin' hole! How good is their aim? Or smarts?" Earl sasked.

Angie sighed out in relief seeing that their pursuers have been warded off for the time being, she then drove them back to the private club to get their bags packed. She went inside with her companions, finding the owner of the club, Pauly, was already having a drink and preparing his club for opening hour along with the casino of the place ready for various guests that will come to the place during late night hours. "So what's the rush this time?" He asked tersely as usual taking a sip from his Beardeaux wine glass before looking at the direction of his guests. "We got what we came for, we'll leave soon, probably tonight." Said Angie as she entered the main area of the bar. "What about you Logan? Earl? Should we leave that soon or we stay for a day longer to get ready first?" Asked Angie.

"I think we leave as soon as possible. Seriously. I saw how those guys came in shooting the place up. I really don't want to stay if that's the case." Logan said as he recalled the mercenaries coming in and shooting near a civilian populated populace. Logan sat down in the club's many seats nd let off a sigh of relief slowly after the vicious fight and being near a deathly massive explosion should the situation not have played out in their favor.

Earl standing there in the club nodded, and sat down himself yawning. "You know I can only take so much of kicking ass, but not taking names. Everyone of those guys were hiding their faces behind something. So we should probably leave. As Logan said since I don't want this fancy club being shot to shit." Earl stated.

Pauly nodded to them both as he took another sip from his glass of Beardeaux trying to keep his mind sober in the midst of widespread confusion and panic around the city. "Fair enough, listen you guys better pack your bags and leave as soon as possible. I can't get a cab to you since it might get pulled over. But I'm willing to let you borrow my personal car, if it got destroyed, just leave a note for me about how." He instructed and drank the entire glass of Beardeaux licking his lips. Angie nodded to him and went upstairs and began to pack her bags with Logan and Earl, they had to work fast and put as much organization and compactness as possible into their luggage seeing that they have no time to stay and enjoy the city anymore now that the police would put the whole town into lockdown. "Earl, I have a feeling the cops will put up wanted posters of anyone they ID at the shootout, when we're on the road put on the shaders to hide our faces." Said Angie as she put her bag on the bed ready to haul it on her back.

With the option of disguise in mind Earl then put his pair of aviator shade on his face from his pocket. It was a lucky break for him at least since he usually wore them while flying or if he's feeling in a more casual mood. "I got you covered. Well me at least. These are the only shades I have with me right now. Cost me a hundred mackers and I ain't keen on getting them busted." Earl said as he adjusted the glasses on his face. He smirked though and crossed his arms. "I do look pretty good with em though. When Logan was a kid he said, and I quote, 'you look like mean robot man.' Yeah he watched some shows and films he prolly shouldn't have at that age." Earl said while Logan blushed embarrassed part of his childhood was just revealed. "What ever. Wolfinator was like my first R rated film." Logan explained.

"But hey at least the first one was the good one, along with the sequel but everything else...I'd call them the Seleucids Empire of movies." Said Angie as she slung the backpack around her back and began to exit the room with Logan and Earl, she put on a hat to protect her identity and tied a mask around her muzzle and chin not only to protect her fur and torso from the sun and heat but also from the authority's surveillance of the area. The trio went into the garage of the club owner and he handed them the key to his car. A classic vintage car from the 1940s, a black 6 seaters with a curvy roof and chassis, the tires sported the signature white color hubcaps on them. "Well at least it won't be the vehicle that the authority look for." Said Angie as she entered the vehicle and closed the door behind the driver's seat with Logan sitting next to her while Earl himself was in the driver's seat. "Good bye for now Mr. Whiskerton." Angie bidded as he blew a friendly goodbye kiss to them from his paw. "Here's looking at you kid, we'll always have Purris." Said Pauly as he watched the group drove away from the private club with the sun setting on the horizon of Catsablanca.

Out on the streets, the police force have increased their patrol units and other response units to hunt down the perpetrators behind the shootout at the market. The authority ran various facial facial recognition programs to identify the culprits as soon as they can. So far they can only identify the unmasked trio while then the shooters had to be interrogated one by one. The process was painfully slow and the entire city's law enforcement completely passive in the process unable to actively identify and apprehend suspects. In the lull of the moment, Flynn was off somewhere else in a different part of town meeting with his handler and his accomplice Cloey. His handler however, was less than livid when found that the thief was unable to obtain the Scripture. "Fool! I told you to get to the auction and buy the scripture! How can you have failed me despite the money and backings I've granted you!?" The weasel handler said with a raspy voice, it sounded like nails on a chalkboard as he berated the inability of the stallion to achieve his goal.

"Look here now, I tried my best...it's just that the girl call a bid higher than anyone can afford in that room. Alright?" The stallion held up his hooves in front of the weasel in heavy combat suit and try to defend himself from the wrath of the cultist leader. "Now look here we can still pursue them using other clues to work with so how about you give me the benefit of a doubt and let me work this plan. Shall we? Cloey what do you think of this? Is it too dumb for us to just let them do MOST of the hard work for us? Hm?" He asked his accomplice Cloey, she was a doe wearing a red T-shirt with a green leaf on the front of the shirt, she wore a pair of khaki pants with a bracelet made of jade on her right hand.

"I don't see why not. Once they do all the work for us then we can slip in and do our thing." Cloey said. She placed a hand on her hip and narked at the two of them before laughing to herself on the situation in front of her. "Never thought I'd see a muscular horse cowering to a weasel though. No worries. As long as we come in at a more vulnerable time, and corner them. I think we got ourselves some leverage against them all." Cloey stated

"See? We can totally win this but really what's the point of your pursuit with the Paw of Midas anyways?" Asked the equine as he sat down on a chair looking at the weasel who then stood up and brood in the room. The weasel grabbed a bottle of wine and began to sip it without a glass in his way to assist him.

"It is simple you stupido farm animal. I, El Capitan of La Conquista of the New World, was the first to discover the Paw of Midas and the mysteries of the Eitr found in its burial place! I drank the Eitr to see what it was and now cursed to long lives while the world fall to the clutches of the weak, impure and impious forces that corrupt the Vatican and the Crown of Spain!" Said the weasel as he began to rant much to Cloey's chagrin, she would roll her eyes hearing a disgustingly old mammal elaborating his motivations. "With the Paw of Midas, I shall be able to continue my struggles to restore the throne of Spain to its pious path! And with it, I shall finally bring the world the eternal revelation of the Lord!" He then coughed out when he hit the high note of his ranting showing signs of madness and other sorts of mania plaguing his mind.

"Alright so this is interesting and all but what of the Eitr?" The equine asked El Capitán Héctor González De Granada. The weasel would then toss down an old depiction of what appeared to be a depiction of Jormungandr swimming the oceans of Midgard battling his opposite Kukulkan in the Yucatan Peninsula to gain dominance of the mortals, with every blows, the liquid of life Eitr fell down on Earth creating life and embedded itself into the depth of the Earth to sustain life. It would seem that Jormungandr was showing signs of active aggression towards the world around it. "Ooookay then...maybe I'll leave it to you and don't ask the question again." Said Flynn as he sat down next to Cloey feeling frightened and genuinely frightened by the weasel's aggressive tendencies, he kissed Cloey's left hoof and up to her cheek and began to act like a casanova towards her. "Cloey darling...am I gorgeous to the eyes or what? Please tell me that I am truly the most charming stallion you've ever seen in the world." He begged her while crooning into her ears.

Cloey of course rolled her eyes, but made a sarcastic smirk to him playing and teasing him. Her thoughts thought he was being overly charismatic, but she went along regardless in her own way. "Well that guy your Ex was with was pretty alright too. Kinda weird looking, but i don't think I'll be able to date a cop without them cuffing me." She leaned in and kissed his cheek back, but held her restraint knowing he was off. "I'm not sure if I'm too into the mood though. Not with our great commander being insane and, well, talking as if he's undead." She laughed of course hearing El Capitan's rants, but never took any of them seriously. Not with how crazy he seemed. "I don't know what you're so scared of. It's all myth, and he's probably taken too many narcotics in his younger years. He might be hallucinating Flynn. Let's face it tough. We're here for the riches. Don't forget that. Not some supposed life juice." She said sternly.

"Right...I'll keep that in mind. The riches that is." He sarcastically reply and sat down next to her, letting the night came to past, meanwhile, Angie and her companions have finally reached the airport after a long journey, they then went to the hangar and load up their luggage on Earl's aircraft ready to depart from the country. As they were doing so, a call reached Logan's cyber coms. It was from Anubis utilizing his laptop's specialized communication network with the robots of the Jackal Guards.

"Logan listen, I'm heading out to the colony of Pergamon right now with Kukulkan to meet up with the Hellenic Pantheon there, I'll marked the location for you to link up. Tell your uncle and Angie to meet me there, Kuku and I will be staying at an old Greek palace by the seaside." Said Anubis over the coms, on Logan's HUD he would see Anubis's call as a video call similar to that of Skype. Then on his digital display of a world map, he would see that Anubis marked a settlement on the coast of Turkey but the deity seemed to be fond of calling it by the ancient names, tagged along with it were coordinates Logan can display to Earl and help his navigation.

On his map the selected location gave something for Logan to memorize easier. Still he thought on why Anubis prefered to use old ancient names to refer to locations as they were clearly named different in modern times. Something even Logan remembers learning about when in geography class. He got his luggage on board quickly after the call, and nodded on his chat with Anubis using an avatar of his robotic cyberself to represent himself. "You got it. I'll go tell him now. Not sure what he'll think." Logan said as he moved to the cockpit of the plane.

At the cockpit currently Earl had both of his feet kicked up on his plane's console just over the control wheel. He was again smoking a cigar before he need to take off, but now he was ready an old playhound magaze. Of course he was interrupted by Logan causing Earl to swiftly put the magazine away. "Uh-uh-uh. Nothin'. Just guns. And booze. Uh. Your friend Canyon recommended the magazine." Earl said defending himself. Logan shook his head though and thought of what Anubis said. He forgot how to share information that was in his mind until just the thought alone caused his optics to project a hologram of Earth with a red "X" over the coast of Turkey. "Oh that's how that works then. So we need to take a detour Anubis said. Pergamon he said. He's having a meeting with other deities there for some reason." Logan said shrugging. "So we're goin' to Turkey?" Earl asked.

Anubis nodded to them both from the video call on Logan's line. "Precisely. Kukulkan and I will set up some markings for you guys to see, Angie would be the first to recognize them so she'll let you know. Good luck and may Ganesha blessed you all." The jackal deity then ended the call as he and Kukulkan flew off to the rally point, Angie herself saw the red marking and mumbled to Logan taking note of the development. "Well at least we're on track towards the origin of the Myth." Said Angie as she then sat down and buckle up her seat belt with Logan next to her. Earl's engines then sputtered to life as the plan roll off the hangar out to the runway, there, the aircraft took off from the runway flying into the sky and out of Catsablanca and fly off to the coast of Turkey, their journey was inching one step closer to the point where it all started.


	6. Chapter 6: Ending a legacy

Chapter 6: Ending a legacy

From the romantic seaside view of Catsablanca to the majestic seaside view of the Anatolia, Earl's plane soar through the sky like Horus and saw that the various hills and rocky mountain sides gave off the sense of Hellenic beauty unmatched anywhere else on the planet. Angie sat behind the cockpit looking out of the window for signs of Anubis's rally point. So far, nothing has come into her sight yet, "Nothing yet Earl, keep flying but if we have to, land the bird at some place safe. Maybe a local airstrip." Said Angie as she watched the ground below.

While they were in the air, on the ground Anubis himself was pacing back and forth by the ruins of the Temple of Artemis, he glanced at the watch on his wrist seeing that it was now 15:00 hours and that his companions were still nowhere to be found. "Don't be sssso troubled by the lack of mortalssssss presssssence Anubissssss. Perhapsssss they are well on their waysssss right now." Said Kukulkan as he fluttered in front of Anubis, the frown of the Jackal deity grew more and more as he try to keep his mind focus and tranquil.

"Kukulkan, forgive my trouble but I have reasons to be concerned. You should fly up and guide them in but don't crash their plane in the process with your winds." The jackal deity sighed out as he watched Kukulkan flew up into the air and fly over towards the direction of Earl's plane. From his cockpit, the wolf pilot can see that his radar began to pick up the signature of an UFO heading towards him from the Northeast direction.

Kukulkan's reading appeared as a simple green dot on a circular radar instrument on Earl's right. The green dot occasionally blipped up on the radar and fade away, but for each time the dot was visible it was definitely approaching Earl's plane. A bit too close for comfort for him since he grabbed the control wheel by both joysticks much tighter than before. "Something just entered out airspace guys. Gettin' closer too. Gettin' closer faster." Earl said right as he squinted his eyes to the radar screen. "Ehhh. Getting' closer faster." Earl said as he lifted his body back up. He pinched his microphone on the left side of his head and moved it closer to his mouth while his face showed a more cautionary expression towards the situation he knew could be dangerous. He spoke sternly and yet calmly into the microphone "Unidentified aircraft, you're uh. You're getting very close to our instead air space. Please divert. And soon." Earl said. However, it didn't seem he would get a natural response from the supposed people he thought he was talking to.

"Sssssslow down…" Said the voice of Kukulkan over the radio, but Earl at first would hear a static sound and heavy interference, he can tell that Kukulkan like other deities wasn't quite adept in radio communication or using their telepathic power to tune into radio signal. "Follow me...mortalssssss." The plumed serpent said again as he was seen making an acrobatic twist and turn around in front of Earl's plane before making a dive to the ground towards the temple of Artemis. "Your patron Jackal awaitssss there mortalssss. Come and land by the clearing near the temple'sssss ground." The serpent instructed as he flew over the temple's roof and lead Earl in. Angie to her excitement saw that Kukulkan was flying around making a beacon out of his body to signal them.

Earl looked to Angie rather confused, but shrugged, "'You really need to tell me more about your deity friends Angie. I think these old eyes just saw a flying snake with wings…" Earl said confused. However, Logan looked out of the plane's window and saw Kukulkan as well. He grinned in awe by the majesty of the flying serpent. "Don't worry Uncle Earl. Just follow him he's on our side." Logan said. Despite Kukulkan's flying majesty in the sky there was however the fears of snakes and serpents Logan kept stuffed in the back of his mind so it wouldn't escape. However, foggy parts of this fear came out time and time again causing Logan to shudder for no real reason to Kukulkan. Earl looked over to Logan noticing quickly he was becoming naturally stiff. "Hey. I don't think flying snakes are in the list of things you fear. Besides falling, bees, and pictures of the ocean abyss." Earl reminded.

"Maybe he's adding it to his list now actually." Angie replied sarcastically as she saw Earl flew in and landed his aircraft by the grassy open ground of the temple's front, once Earl had taxied his aircraft into place and stop, he would see Anubis walking out of the temple wearing his silky cotton white outfit from ancient Ewegyptian period of Ptolemaic Dynasty, Howllenic Period for some. On his neck was a black crystal gem shaped like a teardrop. His garment also sported a white dress like trouser underneath, his belt had a Xiphos sword strapped and sheathed in place. The sword itself has its hilt shaped like a wolf's head and the blade was like a literal tongue out of the canine's mouth. "Catsablanca was quite an adventure city wasn't it? Shame that we have to leave so soon with so much enemies looking for us there." Said Anubis as he saw Earl and his nephew disembarking alongside Angie from the plane.

"Classy joint, but we got some work to do. Maybe I'll go back next time," Earl said casually while exiting the plane alongside Logan and Angie. Right as Earl touched the ground he breathed in the fresh sea breeze and sighed feeling the natural winds act as a way for his soul and mind to be put at ease. "Pretty darn amazing you having a million bucks somehow. Is there such thing as a poor deity?" Earl jokingly asked while Logan himself looked around the setting.

Logan looked to the temple by tilting his head upwards and letting his mouth drop. The place by now was like other ancient places, but unlike those he felt here the setting and the hillside luxury the structure had made it somewhat more magnificent. He wasn't aware for the moment Kukulkan was near him and kept his trance-like he kept on the monument.

"Well to be honest there was one poor deity with needy pockets." Anubis smirked to Earl and Angie, this further raised her interests to hear the inner workings of the deity universe out of curiosity as she had seen with her own eyes what he was capable of doing. "So who was it then Anubis? Seeing that on average the Egyptian deities I have met so far...you and Thoth at least...worth billions of dollars by today." Said Angie as they walked into the temple's interior for some shelter. "Aten, the Sun disk. He was a clown and a jest to the pantheon, so obnoxious was his personality that the populace decried him and tossed him out of the pantheon. Believe it or not, he used to have a campaign of his own to make him the replacement for Ra, called Make Ewegypt Great Again." Said Anubis as he sighed out in displeasure.

Listening to this Earl nodded his head while reaching into the pocket of his aviator jacket and pulling out a brown and well made cigar. He simply bit the end off using his mouth before pulling out a chrome zippo lighter to light it. "Sorry about the smokes. Uh. Yeah. I guess a dish can 'dish' out some anger. So what else? Was he used as fine china? Maybe some pate." Earl joked. He held the cigar in his mouth and inhaled smoke into his mouth and tasted its earthiness. Seemingly nothing got to the man. Logan however smelled the collecting smoke and cringed despite the smell being nostalgic to him. Even as a pup he'd remember family visits and Earl in a recliner smoking. "Here too Earl? Really?" Logan complained slightly.

"Really Earl? It's a good thing that we're not caught red handed by Artemis or something. By the way where is she now?" Angie asked looking at Anubis who sat down by a wooden table with some stools for them to accompany him. "Well she's off to Hellas by this point, the Howllenic Pantheon need as much deities protecting their homeland as possible by this point. Not a pretty sight if you will." Said Anubis as he placed the map of Anatolia on the table along with the golden Paw of Midas that he brought along for the trip, Angie opened the scripture she bought from Catsablanca and compared it with some of records they had in the museum. "Alright then, the records said that we have a certain key that we need to access the Mausoleum of Zoey. But it's locked away in the Mausoleum itself so we can't access it." Said Angie as she went through the original notes of the archive but something didn't add up. The original writing was a translation from ancient Greek to Roman Greek. Surely something would have changed over the years.

"You should check the scripture as well, seeing that it is a much more...recent document regarding the key." Said Anubis as he read the scripture on the table, his attention was apparently fixed on the document's passages and paragraphs stating a certain change in location had occurred. Angie gasped out seeing these passages and immediately start translating it to Logan and Earl. "It says…'By order of Emperor Justinian, the Sanctum of Sacred Wisdom was constructed and the Key to the Mausoleum was sealed within. Some of the men mentioned that in their diggings they felt sick when they reach down to the lower section of the Mausoleum...a plague followed them to the capital and the empire was stricken by it. A blue liquid as bright as the stars but...cold as the ice, anywho drank it shall be stricken by a disease that drives them to death faster than anyone dare dreamed. And yet, some felt strangely healthy, immune to the diseases. We suspect they were protected the Lord above, but...it too was an illusion as they grow more and more savage.'" Angie read the rather disturbing lines about the mausoleum and what was inside it, the passages gave off a rather disturbing chill to her and Logan. But for Anubis, his stoic and calm nature remained undisturbed.

The visions of a plague causing other mammals to turn into what sounded like savages beasts, and for them to go feral gave Logan an odd flash back to the predator events in Zootopia and how predatory mammal went feral almost. He shuddered feeling the judgmental eyes of people gaze down on him back then. He thought back to the scripture and shook his head. "Sounds a lot like that event that happened a while back. You know I'm partly an officer because of that." Logan said in a nervous tone. "So is this the conspiracy just more mythical." Logan said anxiously.

"Not quite Logan." Anubis suddenly corrected him, surprisingly enough the deity didn't give off a rather condescending statement or explanation to the events of the mortal's realities and histories. "You see, the Eitr that you found in the Yucatan Peninsula was an example of Jormungandr poison, which was also the blood of Ymir that created life. At the time of the Bisontine, I saw that the Eitr was so poisonous to the mortals of the time that they soon died of the noxious fumes at first contact. Not even enough time to be driven insane and feral. I think that by these days, with mortals being more healthy, the Eitr might have an edge to drive them feral once again. Simply because it has time." The deity concluded and sighed out rubbing his temple feeling nauseating just as much as Logan.

"In a word, so powerful that it weeds out the weak and drive the strong to insanity and ferocious savagery. Reducing civilization to the base instincts." Angie uttered out in fear and realization that the Eitr could practically be weaponized as a plague, a toxin. The thought of a form of it existed in the Nighthowler flowers gave her more chills. "Age old mythologies suddenly strike too close to home for my liking here." Said Angie as she turned to Anubis for more questions. "But...Anubis, what was Jormungandr involvement in all this? I mean first this was about the Paw of Midas and now suddenly Jormungandr turned out to be involved in it." She asked while looking at Anubis's face.

Anubis looked to Logan strangely enough, he apparently was eyeing Logan's face but something in Logan told him that the black jackal was seeing something more than just his physical appearance. "Jormungandr at the time was fighting against other deities, trying to bring one more step of Ragnarok to reality as the prophecy foretold. But he failed. His poison was found in Kukulkan's homeland, gathered into a molten sanctum to quarantine it from the rest of the population of the Mayan, the other cache of it, here in Bisontine territories, was hoarded into the Mausoleum of Zoey, deep in the underground sanctum walled off from contact with the Earth. That way the Eitr can not infect other parts of the Earth and bring more poisons. However, it breathes life into the petrified statue of Zoey. Meaning that when you find her, you will hear her screaming from her petrified golden state." The jackal deity concluded with a somber and solemn tone looking down at the map provided to him by none other than Athena herself, the marked Mausoleum itself had a jackal skull and two bones crossed to show that the place was far too dangerous to be accessed by anyone.

Logan didn't seem to take the information here well, or any of the information given well since he turned stiff and immovable. He breathed in a heavy breathing knowing such a poisonous and malicious substance existed, but moreover was who had created it. Jormungandr the giant serpent. This vision alone made Logan more aware of the threat of the Eitr. Looking back on how the Eitr was stored and hidden deep underground almost made it more like a radioactive substance being held where the radiation could not affect others. "This crap really bug me. I don't know why. I hate snakes, and this poison is from one… but it's from a frost giant that gives life? So it's good? But no wait. It's poison, and you stuffed it below the surface underground like nuclear waste so it's bad. And it turns people insane and kills others so it's actually double bad." Logan said confused in his tone.

Earl shrugged as well while looking back to Athena's map. It definitely looked like hers since it was much more light and thoughtfully written out as with someone with wisdom. Earl himself looked down to the skull and crossbones and grumbled. "Don't be confused by anything logan. Whatever this shit is its baaaad news boy…" Earl said with amore stern voice.

"Precisely so. I still need to get in contact with the Norse Pantheon on how to destroy the Eitr from mortal realm permanently. But there's not much results so far. Hopefully we can find one before the next plague strike." Said Anubis as he pointed them to the depiction of the symbol under the Hagia Sophia. "As for this, the scripture starts to make sense now. The sanctum for the Key is underneath the Hagia Sophia, I suspect that Justinian was trying to keep it there for future explorations back to the Mausoleum but he passed away before anything could be done." Angie's speculation was shared by Kukulkan as he whispered his chilling voice to her ears. "I sssshare your sssskepticism mortal one. Finding the Paw of Midasssss wassss a bonus but the Eitr alwayssss be a draw for anyone finding it. One sip and you will be long lived, but as the years went on, your mind ssssslip and your ssssanity fall to the abyss before you too succumb to the madness. They may not have known thisssss. But I sssssuspect that they would have to learn it the hard way regardlesssssss."

But while they were discussing their plans and clues, they didn't realized that high in sky about 7 miles away from them, a UAV drone was circling above recording their conversation and feeding the operators of it their findings. On a freighter ship mooring off the coast of the Ionian land, a UAV operator was watching them, accompanied by Flynn and Cloey, the two thieves saw the two deities present there discussing with Angie and Logan as well as Earl. "Well well now, we have deities in the mix? So who's the mad one then Cloey, us, our employer or them? Either way I don't know about you but I think I'll take the Paw of Midas regardless." Said Flynn in a sarcastic manner while smiling teasingly at Cloey.

Cloey rolled her eyes and looked to the screen again looking to Kukulkan most of all. To her he was the most abnormal one of them since he was a flying snake practically. Aside from that Anubis's dark appearance despite him being a jackal really gave her some off put feelings. "Well then looks like we are going to have to do some divine intervention then. Interception rather. I got a feeling the snake one, Kukulkan I believe, I think he'll catch up to you in a blink." She then looked to Anubis and smiled. His body was certainly attractive as was given usually to him, but something else caught her eye. His position over the others and his careful planning. "So what's a grave hound like him doing leading a team of tomb raiders and wolves? Shouldn't he be burying people?" Cloey asked with an odd teasing tone.

Flynn however chuckled and smirked teasingly at her for the question as he laughed his head off. "Him...you mean the edge lord with the cringey fashion sense? For your information darling, he IS the lord of the Duat and he protects tomb by...pre-emptively plundering them. Is that good enough for you yet? Now where's my kiss?" He smugly smirked at her while having a rather playful smile on his face preparing to be kissed or slap by Cloey.

Cloey simply rolled her eyes and gave Flynn a small peck on his cheek before she moved back and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "There." She said with a smirk before turning her attention and focus back to the monitor. "And don't look now. I see your last year's model in there." Cloey said pointing to Angie. She then looked to Logan and felt her eyes widen a bit stunned by him. "And hello you… isn't' he a looker." Cloey said stunned.

However their moment of innocence and playfulness was cut short by the growling raspy voice of their employer as he grumbled and growled at their direction in an increasingly animalistic and feral way. "Enough the both of you! At last I have found it the location of the second Eitr cache! Soon, I, El Capitan shall ascend to the Prophet of the Lord and cleanse the world of Pagan Demons!" He cackled and began laugh an almost cartoonish evil laugh that made himself a silly caricature. However he soon coughed and fell to the floor writhing in pain and rolling on the ground in pain. He reached for his Oxygen mask and placed it over his muzzle and began to breath in and out.

"Okay then...El Capitan whatever your name is. You know Cloey I seriously have to admit I made the worst career choice ever with picking up this guy's contract." Said Flynn with a shrug while looking at the pitiful sight of the vicious and fearsome El Capitan reduced to that of an old man coughing out, long lived but was still vulnerable to ailments and diseases. Perhaps a reminder of what he was and still is.

[hr]

Istanbul, Turkey

The evening left the city of Istanbul, once Constantinople, in a state of serene beauty. The exotic beauty of the city's diverse population and various quarters of the city lit up their lamps and lights, attracting tourists and busy businesses stay up all night to serve its various guests. Under Thoth's moonlight, Anubis cruised towards the riverside of the Hagia Sophia, National History Museum of Turkey. There he moored the speed boat off of it for Angie and Logan to break into the place via the sewer entrance. "Alright you two hope that you remember the drill, find the entrance to the vault and access it. If I were you, I'd start with the lower echelons of the museum first." Anubis stated and handed Logan and Angie each of them a tranquilizer pistol. The weapons were apparently M92F Bearretta model with a laser attachment below the barrel and a suppressor attached to the muzzle.

With his weapon in hand Logan took a moment to admire what seemed to be a change of pace for the moment. He took a quick look at each of the darts and already knew tonight's mission was to be made non lethal. He carefully put the darts away after opening his thigh compartment for later, and then looked to Angie with a nervous look. He already knew that despite no killing involved for today he would be participating in breaking and entering. Possible robbery despite the great or good. Something he knew being a policeman he could not accomplish without some guilt. "Alright. Here comes some good time heisting action…" Logan said before making his way through the water to find a sewer. He held his breath and felt his gag reflex steady knowing the water here was not clean as it should. He held his nose up to ward away any of the awful smells.

"Here goes nothing. You're good with a laptop Anubis?" Angie asked as she put the weapon into her thigh holster and check the camera and earpiece on her head. Anubis in the meantime was seen opening a laptop and booted up the device, much to both Logan and Angie's surprise he was quite familiar with how to use it, he ran a operational check on both Logan and Angie's cams and found them to be in perfect working order. "Good to go now. Good luck to both of you." Said Anubis as he gave them a thumb up smiling at the two before seeing them running into the sewer underneath the museum.

However, they weren't the only parties involved in the heist there, not far away, Flynn was making his way on the rooftop towards the window on the top dome of the Hagia Sophia, the area on the roof was relatively lightly guarded as most of the security assets were focused on the priceless artifacts inside the place. "Alright then Cloey, show time. I'm going down to see what's cooking between Angie and...her temporal boyfriend before I swing in and make a smashing entry." Said Flynn in a smug manner as he began to rappel down the building's roof. As he rappel down, he saw that the security down there were walking about with their flashlights shining the area around them to make sure that nobody was breaking in. "There's a guy below me. There's a guy below me." Said Flynn over the comms in an almost playful manner before he dropped down and snapped the security guard's neck. "Okay now that I'm in, where to first? Oh yes that's right the basement." He then went out towards the storage area of the museum to look for clues. While then, Angie and Logan were making their ways towards the basement area of the museum, there, they found various crates and boxes of artifacts and relics from various countries and eras. Mostly were from the Ottomammals and older than that, the Howllenic City states on the Anatolia Peninsula. "Look at these Logan, all sorts of relic from different cultures, they all come from various unique cultures so different from one another...all in one geographical area." Said Angie in awe as she couldn't help but look at the various priceless artifacts.

Logan looked to Angie's awestruck face and then back to the variou artifacts in the crates. To him the placement of pieces of history he knew Angie would die just to have in her living room were poorly placed. However, he smirked to Anige's face and tapped on her shoulder before shaking his head. "Nah-ah. I think someone claimed these relics now. Not ours babe." He said noting Angie's more lust struck face as she skimmed through each of the artifacts. "Besides that we got some… Weird psycho liquid to take care of now. Cmon." Logan said while he moved further into the museum.

"Right I know Logan. Sorry about that hun." She sighed out defeatedly knowing that despite her wishes, she can't quite have them right away. Then the two came to a strangely cordoned off area of the basement, she saw "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" ribbons along with red safety cones to keep various employees off of it. "Uh, Logan...I think we found something here…" Said Angie as she pointed him to the strange darkened underground hallway behind the ribbons. His infrared and night vision modes can make out various stone structures built from the Bisontine era with a twisting flight of stairs down towards what could be the sanctum of the Key. "Looks like you two hit the jackpot. The construction style fit Bisontine time not to mention the relief on the walls and depiction." Said Anubis over the comms as he saw that the depiction seem to take on a bit more medieval, early dark age style of depiction that Logan could recognize from various castles and medieval themed media.

It was something he was more comfortable with historical, but even then just the basics. Logan moved to the fluorescent colored construction ribbon and moved it out of the way carefully rather than being reckless here and tearing it up. "Don't tear it. Not sure if the guards on shift come down here." Logan said before he peeked his head over the side of the wall by the basement. He could hear some of the guards conversion among themselves rather casually despite the language barrier. He rose a brow to the professionalism here. "That is if they are on patrol at all…" Logan said as he took the circular flight of stairs down into the dark. As darkness krept over his pupils glew a blue color. His vision showed the world around him as a customized choice of blue tinted night vision rather than just green. The darker the place got the higher he needed to set the intensity of the night vision his vision had. "Watch your step here. This is going to trip you if you're not careful…" Logan then switched on his EMF vision to trace any electronic signals such as camera, or motion sensors. His vision unred into a dark flat blue color while times such as running wires or circuitry turned green.

"Don't worry, we're nocturnal remember?" Said Angie as she and Logan began to make their way down the stairs towards the sanctum, as they went down the stairs, Angie saw murals and various depictions of what happened to the Paw of Midas. Much to their surprises, the depiction wasn't about the King Midas himself but rather a legion of Bisontine going on an expedition into the land of Lydia and Phrygia, ancient kingdoms of the Midas myth. One depiction show a legionnaire reaching his paw into the river Pactolus to pick up gold nuggets. His paw turned to gold and was forced to amputate the mutated paw, then the Golden Paw was transported to Constantinople, setting into motion the events of the past as mortals see it. "No wonder why something was off, Midas was a donkey, or a horse in some tellings of his mythos. He would have had hooves not a paw. Not only that but he washed his hooves in the Pactolus river before so that would make it impossible for the Paw to be his own." Said Angie in awe as she examine the mural depiction of how the Bisontine obtained the Golden Paw.

Nervously Logan thought of the river Midas had rinsed his hands in and thought of the implications this had such as the river still bearing such powers of turning people and objects to gold, or if said gold nuggets were there would someone steal them? "You don't think the river… or the. Nevermind." Logan shook his head out and focused on the golden paw of Midas. Or the supposed paw now that Logan and Angie have had their fill of a revelation. Logan looked back up at the murals and sighed. "Looks like this is some type of mess now. Anything this thing touches turns to gold and then those pieces of gold touch something and then that becomes gold, and then… Oh God." Logan held his head in confusion and groaned in pain. "See now I got a migraine headache. Ach…" Logan complained.

"I'm honestly more surprised that the river hasn't poisoned anyone or turn them into gold...yet." Said Angie with a tinge of fear in her voice. Apprehension grew as they made their ways down to the inner sanctum where they saw a massive set of booby traps along the hallways, ready to be triggered once a pressure plate was stepped on. "Alright...just what we need, a massive sanctum, booby traps ready to crush anyone going in here...just like the Conquistador fort." She looked at the floor in front of her seeing the various letters written in Greek before her, there was feeling that the wrong letter might activate the booby trap mechanism. "Okay I need a hint, something here about Midas or maybe something about him...think Angie think…" She muttered trying to figure out the keywords that made sense.

"Midas grew resentful of wealth and splendor after the whole Golden touch debacle with Dionysus, I think the riddle might be something about the sin of wealth." Said Anubis over the comms as he watched Angie preparing herself for the final step forward. She then looked down at the floor of the Greek letter and read them one by one, "Opulent is sinful…" She uttered. The realization soon propelled her forward, taking a step at the right tile then hopped over to the next following a pattern that lead her to the otherside without setting off booby traps. "I made it through! Just follow my footsteps Logan and you'll be fine!" She shouted to him from the other side of the corridor the place, Logan can see that there were two massive doors with sculpted out figures of Dionysus or Bacchus to the Romans, Zeus or Jupiter, Hera or Juno, Athena/Minerva, Hephaestus/Vulcan and so on. With Zeus being on top of the pyramid of the God's sitting on his golden throne on the top of Mt. Olympus with a golden eagle on his hand.

After Logan had crossed the treacherous pressure pit maze he looked to the pyramid statue of the gods and focused his attention right onto Zeus's statue. It was odd how such an elaborate and intricate set up sculpture of art had been hidden underground. However, as Logan looked at the statue some odd feeling came over him. "So. Why is a museum hiding all of this? Is this too important for the public eye or is something more cryptic and mysterious going on here. There's no way none of the staff knew about this, and had to keep a zipped up lip." Logan spouted while looking to Zeus's statue. It didn't take much though for Logan to decipher who Zeus was and his position over the other gods. "I assume the one in the chair is the head deity? Uh. Maybe with a larger than life ego seeing this… Statue built up with him on the very top." Logan said while his eyes were looking and eyeing the other deity figures on the statue.

"That's Zeus, King of Mt. Olympus and head of the Pantheon...he's notorious for having affairs with mortal women everywhere. Father of Heracles, Theseus and countless other demigods." Said Angie in awe as he approached the doors seeing that it was locked tight, the locking mechanism was a set of five switches with the Greek symbols of Alpha, Beta, Omega, Delta, Gamma on them, waiting to be pulled. However it didn't make much sense to her as the switches didn't appear to be made in conjunction with the gate itself, other than an amalgamation of various Classical Age references threw together in a stew of a tomb. "Whoever made this, was probably Orthodox Christian, not quite adept to the Classical Howllenic culture preceded it." Said Angie as examined the switches, noting that the first switch she pulled unlocked the barricade at the top of the gate. "The Alpha switch controlled the Barricade of Zeus, let's see what the others do. Hopefully not setting off traps." She then switched the next one, noting that the Beta switch did nothing, a bait switch apparently. "Very clever, from bait and switch to literal bait switch." She commented.

But while she and Logan were trying the switches out, Flynn had snuck down to the catacomb and saw them working on the gate, he hide himself behind a stone corner and used a pair of binoculars zooming up on Logan's appearance, his grin dropped however as he felt something was oddly out of place. He did not recall seeing a robot accompanying Angie at all and yet the laser microphone of the binoculars recorded her conversation with the robot wolf referred to it as "Logan". "Cloey, you're getting this? I mean, this has just got a lot more bizarre than I thought." Said Flynn as he kept his eyes on the two to report on them. Most notably Logan back to Cloey seeing that she has an interest in him.

Cloey viewing the footage looked to Logan puzzles, and yet shocked. She watched as the red colored cyber wolf moved and pulled switches. Mumbling to himself of course words "Nope, Damn, and crap." Cloey rose her brow at him intrigued and yet not at all off put. "So. She's dating a sex bot? Or is there something else going on here I don't get. He was covered in fur and flesh a minute ago." She squinted at his armored plating and nted he still had some muscle indents in him, but no enough to make him a hulking behemoth. "An oddly well built robot I might add. See if you can get closer to him. Not too close. I think I want him." She said as she quietly laughed to herself.

"Oh really Cloey? My muscle and dreamy good luck aren't enough for your eyes? Alright if a pred sex bot gives you wet dream then me see if I can get some photos for your pinup posters." The horse grumbled as he then slowly made his way towards them. However unlike Angie's brilliant maneuver, he was much less finease than her and Logan. The moment he made a step forward to the letter tiles, his hoof landed on the wrong tile and snapped, the tile fell off into a chasm full of spikes and other sharp objects. "Damn it." He hissed out frustratingly as he struggled to lift his large hoof out of it. But he soon saw that Angie had pulled the last switch, the Omega one, it removed the last of the three barricades and opened the door to reveal the vault. Inside, there were no treasures whatsoever, there was only one thing there, a pendulum like object, round in shape, with an appearance that reminiscent of a grapefruit used by Dionysus to make wine. On it was a sculpted face of Midas. "Cloey, they got the key...be ready to hit the alarm system on my mark. By the way, what do you say about a tracking beacon on them?" He asked with a pistol pulled out of his holster and aimed at either Angie or Logan.

"Oh. Hard choice. You have the girl on the right which a beacon will stick to. Since she's actually normal, but then you have, uh, heh, Logan as she keeps calling him on the left. He won't feel a tracker on him, but it might fall off of all that armor on him. He looks like a suit of power armor or something." Cloey joked looking at the two of them. She was more fixated though on Logan's odd appearance having yet to ever have her sights on a machine as advanced as him yet. "Yeah maybe officer boy there. Ironwolf, Robowolf. Hope you beacon can stick to him." Cloey said.

"Okay. Here goes nothing luv." Flynn then took aim at Logan's back, at where his rumps began to take shape and fired his suppressed tranquilizer gun, the tracking beacon was a bead like device with a sticky glue at the front of the round, it stuck on Logan's back without him knowing and Flynn duck down behind the stone structure waiting for Logan and Angie to obtain the Pendulum. He peeked out and saw that Angie was putting the pendulum into her rucksack for safekeeping before walking out with Logan. "Heading back out now Cloey, be ready on my go." Said Flynn as he head out of the underground area, his rush and hastiness push him forward to the exit but the hooves of a horse weren't as stealthy as the paws of a wolf, let alone a feline. Angie and Logan's sensitive ears can hear the sound of his hooves clopping on the stone floor as they went up the stairs now being much more cautious than before. "Cloey hit the security system now! I need absolute darkness to get out quietly!" Flynn instructed over the earpiece, on the other end, Cloey was on a laptop sitting on a rooftop of a nearby building. She tapped some buttons and access the building's power grid, she then hit the shutdown button, turning off the lights and camera system. "Thanks Luv, now at least you can stalk Robowolf and his shiny chrome armor...you perv." He teased her before running out of the Hagia Sophia with only 15 minutes to go.

"Damn it looks like someone else is trying to beat us to the punch! Let's get out of here!" Angie hastened Logan as she ran out of the Hagia Sophia's interior with him. As they ran a security guard walking about patrolling the place caught sight of her with Logan. He reached for his radio and call his colleagues of intruders, alerting them to the thieves. "Not now!" She fired her tranquilizer at his neck, the dart struck the ram's neck and sedated him instantly causing him to fall down on the floor sleeping with his walky-talky fell to the ground. "What's going on? Respond. Something's going on by the West Wing, support unit confirm his status." Said the Dispatcher on the line as additional securities ran to the site.

Logan as he ran picked up the radio and cleared his throat out to mimic the best accent he could to the radio dispatcher. "Uhhh… Looks like someone pulled the alarms?... Uh its a prank! SOMEONE'S PRANKING!" Logan shouted while running with not much success on his convising. "Yeah I don't think they bought that hun! Fucking book it!" Logan shouted.

"Just great you just have to inform them of our presence now do you?" Anubis growled frustratingly as he put his laptop down and folded it into a backpack strapped on his back with a trio of strings slung over his chest. The deity fired up the motorboat and began to cruise out to the side of Hagia Sophia's waterfront, he slowed down when he saw Angie and Logan were about to jump on to his boat, as the boat came to a slow, Angie and Logan leaped over the guardrails of the pavement and landed on the backseats of the motorboat with a loud thud. The Jackal deity had to brace the ship's sides to prevent it from tumbling over before sitting down to cruise them out to safety. "Let's meet up with your uncle and head out to the Pactolus river, we have what we need now." Said Anubis as he cruised the boat towards the sea of Marmara direction to pick Earl up before heading down the Pactolus.

Flynn however was more of a cautious player when sneaking out of the museum, he let the various mammal security officers there disperse to multiple directions before making a run towards the dock of the city, sneaking out while still wearing his thief outfit was a bit of a dangerous gamble seeing that he could be caught at anytime by the police force of town. The equine head into an alleyway and changed his outfit to a more fitting casual attire before going out to the docks. There, he met with Cloey again in front of the freighter they were on for the past few days out at sea, the S.S Shaheen. A large black rusty freighter once hauling oil now converted to a mobile base on the sea. "Hello there darling. Miss me? Okay I got some pinup posters for you girl. They may not be high definition but sure as hell give you wet dreams." Flynn smirked at Cloey as he handed her the binoculars he used to spy on Angie and Logan, the device also had a spy cam attached to it on the top to take photos of any subjects that might be of interest to the users. "Also tracker is working now you can stalk your dreamy sex bot anywhere it goes." Flynn snid ely remarked as he checked the PDA screen of the tracking beacon attached on Logan as it sent out signals heading down the Sea of Marmara and down to Pactolus river.

The night was dark enough to the point Cloey needed to squint relatively hard into the binoculars to actually see the group, but as soon as she did she saw her target. Logan looking rather embarrassed with a dopey expression on his face. He seemed to be making an anxious smile someone would make after having messed up. "Well there he is. If I didn't know any better Flynn I think Logan might actually be living. He has this nervous look on him. Staring at the guy at the front. Who is…" She looked at Anubis perplexed, but not as perplexed as Logan. Seeing his dark colored fur blend into the night and his heavily pointed ears was a sight to see. "A very odd looking jackal. Your former ex has a lot of interesting characters." Cloey spoke as she lowered the binoculars. "If i were you I'd keep a close eye out. She's not working with normal folks." Cloey stated glaring intensely.

"Neither are you two!" Said the booming and raspy El Capitan as he came out of the freighter waving his cane at their direction and knocking on Flynn's head repeatedly before coughing out again. "But at last I shall be able to find the Eitr and with it I will ascend to become the Lord's new Prophet!" He screeched out at the top of his lung causing Flynn to shush him repeatedly to avoid cringe worthy embarrassments from the dock workers. "Okay okay we get the point! No need to repeat that seriously…" Flynn sighed out before looking back at Cloey herself and grinned. "Okay so this guy is a bit of a looney but I can safely bet that we'll be just fine working with him. Right? After all the money's the matter not the LSD or Coke that he's been smoking." The equine smugly stated as he packed up his exploration gears on a truck with the expedition crew and began to make their ways to the Pactolus river by land. However, along the way, Cloey can see that El Capitan has been growing increasingly erratic.

His eyes darted around faster and faster, showing a case of paranoia and symptoms of hyperactive behaviours that wouldn't be normal in any mammals at this rate. His mouth began to foam and his hands shake and fidget while holding onto his walking cane. The money might be important to her and Flynn, but the fact remains, they were working for a rabid employer and the money wouldn't matter if they were admitted to a mental asylum and proven to be clinically insane.

The behavior and body language of their employer made Cloey nervous for her own well being, but she was way far into the operation by now, and time spent alone with the mad capitan was already spent more than actual money. She crossed her arms watching him anxiously knowing his cane was about the only thing keeping him on his feet. Something clearly went wrong before with him. Possibly a long time ago. "I really don't know. It's too late now. I spent so much on these voyages and so much time with him… Then again." She spoke pondering. She thought of what the man might do if he did in fact obtain the Eitr, and where she would fit in with his master plan. She didn't like the first thoughts that came to her mind. Either she would go unpaid, killed, or even enslaved in the man's army. "Just keep watch of him. I don't think money alone will keep me in this if it means we are ended up for something grizzly…" Cloey said ominously.

[hr]

While then Anubis was cruising the boat out to the Sea of Marmara heading South along the coast towards the area of the Pactolus river and enter it. On his cruise boat were Anige, Logan and Earl sitting together in the back. The digital map of the boat showed them that the area they were heading into was going to be a narrow and rough mountainous area, they will have to slow down and continue on foot when the time comes. "Logan I brought along a small improvised charging device for you, take your time with it trust me. You'll need the rest. Angie take the wheel for me." The jackal's hands were off the boat's steering wheel and let Angie took control for him while he picked up the tube of the charging cable, it was about 5 cm wide in diameter with a coupling at the tip. On the coupling's side was a locking mechanism operated by a lever. The device itself was a portable generator ran on diesel, not the best but it will have to do for Logan for the time being.

Logan looked at the device anxiously, and felt his pupils narrow at the thought of himself having the object inserted into part of his body. Especially out in the open in a moment such as now. Worst yet his nervous thoughts continued as Earl was right there with Anige as well on the boat with him. "Uh… Thanks?" Logan said attempting to sound positive and grateful for the attention he was receiving. However, the robot wolf looked to the object again and shook. "Anubis is it possible we can do this in a place… uh, private? I know where you're going to stick that after all." Logan commented a bit disgusted still by the whole cyber body he had.

"Actually, this one has a different method." Anubis reached for Logan's chest surprisingly, he slowly moved his palm to the locking mechanism on his chest and found an auxiliary energy port mounted on his left chest and stroke it. The lock released when Anubis pressed it inward and an automatic port slid open, revealing to the Jackal deity the reactor inside Logan's mechanized body and the glowing light it emits. Anubis gently inserted the cable into the port and tied it up to Logan's chest and locked it into place, ready to work. He then fired up the generator setting the recharge rate to medium. When energy flows into Logan's body he could feel the tingling sensation of being charged up and the relaxing feeling of being serviced like that of Alfred back home. On his blue HUD, he can see that his body's energy was at 35% and next to the counter was a wire plug icon showing that he was being charged up gradually. "There that should do it. Ever been on a boat before Earl?" Anubis asked his uncle. It was quite surprising to see the Jackal open up to Earl about a topic not related to airplanes or Earl's past.

Earl watched as Logan charged up and rested comfortably, but was caught off guard of course by Anubis's question. "Well uh. Once or twice. Not as long as a plane. Not much of a boat guy. Maybe a couple of cruises where I danced with some lovely ladies in a ballroom. Some fine wines, but those were just some vacations in the past." Earl said.

Logan as he rested his back to his seat more comfortable sighed recalling one cruise he went on once when he just entered teenhood. He could still remember Earl being a romancer and dancing well enough when he could enjoy his life. Though none of the relationships Earl had clearly never led to him being married. "Yep. We've gone on one cruise maybe. They're expensive you know Anubis. That was still pretty funny seeing you twirl that lady around." Logan said with a slight laugh.

Earl nodded while looking back to Anubis. "Yeah the way i see two people fall in love at sea. Went on a cruise seeing this was true, but I forgot her name. Eh. 45 years maybe it's a bit too late he?" Earl said rather casually.

"Maybe...I used to be on these lands when I was 40. Back then I was named Strategos, Field Army General of the Kingdom. I led my Jackal Guards landed on the shores of the Anatolia, we fought a fierce battle at Halicarnassus and ejected the Roman invaders off of it. Now coming back here, gives me nostalgies…" Said Anubis with a sigh looking at the mountains of the Anatolian coast, the majestic sight of region was clearly work of the diligent Gods and Titans like Prometheus and his brother alongside that of Geb, Nut, Oceanus, Uranus, Gaia and much more. As they reach into the Pactolus river, the boat had to slow down and Angie cruise it gently up the river stream. Her eyes scan the horizon for danger seeing that there was little in their ways for the time being other than rocky banks. As Logan and Earl looked down on either sides of the boat, they saw the sights of gold nuggets sparkling under the riverbed waiting for greedy paws and hooves to reach down and collect them.

Logan for one looked to the gold nuggets and felt a very cold shiver jolt down his spine. He looked too Angie with a terrified look despite the objects being simple inanimate objects. "Hey guys… I think we have more proof of this Midas guy." Logan uttered as he pointed down into the water.

Earl looked over the side and saw the golden gleam of the nuggets in the water and grunted in shock. "Wow. Don't touch guys! Not unless you want an amputated trophy of your arm." Earl said sternly and rather frank of the possible consequences of a greed filled touch. Both Logan and Earl both knew clearly what it meant to touch them. It was like looking at a gilded poison that would kill instantly. "Well if that doesn't scare you i don't know what does. Hopefully nobody else goes down this river before they are tempted to touch." Earl said.

Of course Earl's warning was heeded by his companions but to the opposing party, not so much. As El Capitan and his party of mercenaries heading into the river's point of origin, his erratic and insane behaviors began to become much more exacerbated by the proximity they share with the Eitr. He can sense it in the air, a sniff of its icy cold scent alone gave him the bone cracking hunch of a feral animal as he bellowed his hired guns to push deeper into the valley for the discovery of the Mausoleum. "Cloey, I'll lead them towards the Mausoleum, you take this and find Angie for me. See how far is she from us? We might want to let her find it first." Said Flynn as he handed Cloey the binoculars and PDA to help her track down the beacon on Logan's back.

The PDA showed the group of mercenaries and Cloey that the boat the others were traveling on was close to them. Of course a river nearby. Cloey looked back to El Capitan and cringed at his feral ways. "Uh. Okay they aren't too far away from us. I guess that guy's feeling isn't too good. Or if he is a guy that is." Cloey aid thinking back on Logan. She still had no idea on how he functioned or he was his own independent machine. She couldn't think long again as El Capitan's erratic behaviors and the blindness of the soldiers around her were disturbing. She learned to Flynn and sighed. "The closer we get the worst this guy gets…" Cloey said anxious.

"Right, I guess getting away from him would help a bit. Think of it like a fresh air hike shall we? Cheerio." Said Flynn as he waved her off, Cloey would then make her way through the forest of the area down to the nearby river to spy on them. She would see that Anubis had tied his boat to a nearby riverbank and the large tree bark there. The passengers had disembarked from the boat with Anubis helping them with their equipment and weapons. They were limited on firepower from what she can see but the moment Anubis's scepter morphed out of a gem in his palm convinced her otherwise that Flynn's ex might have garnered more than just divine intervention but divine friendship. "Alright then this is the plan. Earl, you go with Logan and Angie to the Mausoleum, I'll stir up trouble in the back of their lines and sabotage their equipment to delay their labor force." Anubis instructed as he handed the handguns to Earl and Angie respectively, as for Logan he handed him an MP5 SMG with 4 magazines to use. For Anubis, Cloey can see that he was bringing a Xiphos sword and a recurve bow on his back made from wood, ornate with gold and a tree sapling that gave it the durability to last multiple shots and be used as a makeshift melee weapon. On his belt he had a dagger slung at the ready once the fighting comes too close for him.

Comparatively the weapons chosen by Anubis looked centuries out of date compared to what the mercenaries had. To Cloey it made sense for Logan to have a relatively advanced SMG with him, but for Anubis to look so ornate and out of time seemed odd for Cloey. She put her binoculars down after listening into the the conversation knowing that Anubis somehow already knew the forces were there as well. As she watched Angie, Logan, and Earl depart away from Anubis she stopped herself from talking on the radio. Partly due to the the fact she knew Anubis was outmatched centuries in weaponry, but also the fact she wasn't sure she wanted to know what El Capitan's insanity would lead to. Just the thought of his crazed motives, and feral personality made Cloey flow with guilt. All she wanted was the money. Not how many people would be affected by him. She moved her hand away from her radio and simply watched Anubis seemingly commit some type of suicide using his old weaponry. "I almost want you to win." Cloey said to herself.

Anubis would then begin to sprint through the forest up to the narrow footpaths the expedition of El Capitan was using, the deity showed off his athletic prowess by climbing up the trees and parkour his way on the branches and hopped off to the high rocks overhead of the expedition. He saw that the mercenaries were using truck convoys to funnel troops and equipment through the valley into the area of the Mausoleum. "Show time." He muttered as he reached for three arrows from the quiver on his back with his left hand holding the bow. He leaped off a rock and as he fell down, his three arrows were strung and loose, they flew at the truck's engines, each arrows slammed into their individual targets and exploded. Turned out they were explosive tips arrows meant to sow chaos and panic. Once Anubis landed, he parkoured towards the jeep in front of him as the mercenaries fired off their turrets to ward him off only to see him putting the bow away and draw his Xiphos and jumped up, thrusting the blade into the neck of the gunner before swinging it around hacking and slashing the other two on the vehicles into a pool of blood.

Seeing the jackal deity's sudden agility and combat prowess out match men in modern day armor, and modern day equipment was a sudden shock to Cloey. Her jaw dropped seeing he had quite a few rick up his sleeve, and his expert use of shock and awe studden her. She grabbed hold of her own pistol and then snuck around the trees getting closer to the battlefield and to intercept Anubis. It was now she got on her radio seeing his skill she needed to warn the other troops. "Uh boys. We just got pounded from behind by some… black jackal." She radioed in as she followed Anubis.

Flynn was heard reaching for his radio with static signal coming from the other end before finally his voice was heard replying to her. "Wait what? You mean that Anubis thing? Well get out of there Cloey! Forget about the workers!" He scowled frustratingly to her, but he sounded concern and fearful. Was it concern for her well being? No time to ponder and rationalize the thoughts, she had to make a decision. She saw that Anubis was now facing a BMD-3 airborne APC, the turret aimed its main gun at Anubis's face with the powerful 30mm autocannon ready to blow his face apart. There was no way his sword and arrow can pierce its hides and for a minute Cloey thought that she can rest easy with the fact that Anubis was good as dead. But her relief was cut short when she saw him levitating off the ground, the rock and pebbles around him began to levitated from the ground and gather around him with his eyes glew bright like the lanterns until they were both pale. From both eyes an intense and bright ray blasted through the hull of the BMD as his growl took on a more otherworldly quality. Anubis moved the beam upward and split the turret apart and the vehicle exploded into a burning husk, sending the remaining mercenaries and workers fleeing from their vehicles.

As the mercenaries ran off, so to did Cloey after seeing Anubis's display of power. She could only describe what she saw as a superhero or villain from a comic book or film. Just by seeing the laser like power from Anubis alone made her run back into the forest dodging trees and stepping through the dirt not to meet the same fate as her allies. "Nope! Not like that I'm not!... The guy can fire lasers from his eyes… And… He's weird alright? Just plain and simple he's a super powered beast. How did he do that?" Cloey asked in her radio. It was soon clear to her Anubis had his name for a reason.

"Goddamn it! Just get to my position and don't get spotted on the way! At least we have plan B!" The equine thief gasped out over the comms, apparently he had seen the Death Gaze power Anubis displayed from a distance. He may not have seen it in full like Cloey did, but one thing was certain, Cloey's his eyes and ears and he better listen to what she had to say or risk being ill prepared. Once Cloey had reached his position, Flynn was hiding behind a tree, he grabbed her from behind and placed his hoof over her mouth and cuddle her behind a bush with El Capitan next to him observing Angie's group. "Alright you made it, lovely. We're going to let them go in first then we'll catch them with their pants down." He instructed with a shush.

Before his eyes, he saw Angie, Earl and Logan was standing over a pile of rock a worthless sight without any kind of hints as to the construction of a Mausoleum had occurred there, Angie took a step forward and begin to dig through the ruins and pebbles, searching for signs of a tomb. She moved the stone boulders aside, revealing sculpted images of the Olympian Pantheons and signs of construction. "Ah! Found it this must be the tomb!" Angie giggled gleefully as her digging intensify, soon enough, she unearthed a stone staircase leading down into the subterranean level.

"This is it. Come on let's head down there and seal the Paw inside, so no one can find it." Said Angie as she began to lead them into the tomb. At first, they found various sculptured figurines of King Midas as a mighty stallion and a handsome steed, perhaps as a way to have some last minute vanity to comfort the bitter old man. There were also figurines for his daughter, Marigold or Zoey in some sources, Apollo, Dionysus and other deities Anubis familiar with but in animal forms of the Zootopia world. They soon came to an atrium with a large circular star symbol recognizable as the symbol of Sardes, before Angie was a massive column with two pillars of Dionysus as a bull holding his urn of wine in one hand and the golden touch in the other tempting Midas. Further in was a stone bridge into the unknown depth of the tomb.

Earl and Logan looked to the unknown darkness with both of them having some eerie feeling come of the both of them. If Logan still ad fur on his body he would have felt it all raise up on his body. "Creepy. This just got a lot more intense." Logan said as he led the way towards the tomb depths.

Earl however shrugged to Logan's comment. "It was already pretty darn intense before. Anubis just blew up some guys back there. You tellin' me you didn't hear the damn explosions?" Earls asked before looking on the walls for some light. Despite being nocturnal the low light still could lead to some issues. "Anyone see a torch?" Earl asked.

"I do. Hands up please don't make this any more difficult." Said Flynn as he aimed his pistol at Earl's head, behind him were the bodyguards of El Capitan and Cloey walking in, they fanned out on both flanks and aimed their more high power automatic weapons at the trio threatening a bloody end if they don't cooperate. "Release your weapons! Ahora you puta! Servants of Pagan Demons like you will be burned at the stakes for the Art of Hell! The fire of damnation shall-" El Capitan once again coughed out and start rolling on the ground in pain, this time Flynn didn't bother helping him but rolled his eyes and came towards Angie still holding his pistol at her face.

"Sorry about that Angie. But really this guy creeps me out as much as he creeps you out. He's just high that's all…" He sheepishly tried to defend himself despite the fact that the Spaniard Conquistador was rambling as if he was still in the 16th century conquest of the Mayans. "Soon! Soon! I will have the Eitr and my ailments will be cured once and for all!" He boasted at the top of his lungs, not completely aware of the irony of his own words. "Really? You're going to enjoy pep drinks from a pagan deity while killing other people and persecute pagan deities?" She sarcastically snarked back at him, prompting him to eye her with a rabid gaze, he grabbed the pistol off of his bodyguard's holster and fired a shot at Earl's stomach without hesitation.

The shot went straight into Earl's stomach, and exited out of the back of him. The bullet was so quick it didn't register as pain until a moment later when Earl finally felt the hot sting of a bullet pierce his flesh and exit his body. Blood from his body sprayed on the wall behind him cold in a moment's notice. Once the pain registered his pupils narrowed and his jaw fell as he fell into shock. "Wh-what?..." was all Earl said before he fell into Logan's shaking arms.

Logan looked down at his uncle with a look of disbelief while Earl fell into Him. logan shook his head not wanting to believe the sight of his uncle Earl wounded before him. "No… N-no.. Earl! Uncle Earl!" Logan shouted while shaking Earl. He looked into Earl's eyes while Earl groaned in pain. "Earl come on stay with me! Come on!" Logan shouted frantically.

"You son of a bitch! How could you do this!? What's the point in throwing a hissy fit!?" Flynn whirred out in shock and outrage at El Capitan's ferocious and unstable nature seeing that he was gladly doing a sadist's work without batting an eye. Flynn saw Angie trying to help hold the bleeding of Earl's stomach while nearly letting out tears, he widened his eyes seeing that truly he had made the worst career choice and even worse was that he helped a complete monster and an immature petulant psychopath to a place of wealth. "Now Puta, put the Paw of Midas on the ground. Ahora! And get in there, find the way to the Eitr. Vamono!" El Capitan shouted at her now his mouth frothed with foams to the point it was unmistakably rabies to everyone.

"Stop it! Stop it! Look I'll find a way to the Eitr just calm the fuck down! Comprendre? Fuck…" Flynn reluctantly walked up to Angie and place a medical bag down to her as an act of offering his apologies to her. "Here Angie, this should help stabilize Earl, I'm going inside with Logan to find the Eitr...or whatever they he wants." Said Flynn, only for her to punch him across his face, he fell down to the floor and sooth his wound by rubbing where she hit him. "Definitely deserved it. Anyway come on Logan…It's better us than me and Angie." Flynn said sheepishly as he began to cross the stone bridge with Logan while Angie stay behind to help Earl plug the bleeding and tend to the wound.

While looking at the bridge Logan shook his head and sniffled. He wiped his snout and his eyes with both his and his arm to clear away tears or anything else that might leaked. His mind now was in a frantic through series while it was all caused by just seeing Earl dying. He glared at Flynn and balled a fist as he was forced to help him. "Well was it it all worth all the gold in the world? Now you have my uncle's blood on your hands." Logan said in a bitter tone as he begrudgingly helped Flynn. "Thanks i guess for the medic bag… The way my luck's been it will only give him ten minutes.." Logan continued as he hammered his rage somewhere where it counted the most.

"Got to be honest with you, I thought that this guy was some weirdos who would rather coup up in his condo or something. Smoking weeds and getting high all that stuff...just didn't realize it was going to be this far. But...are you real or like just a robot or something?" Flynn asked Logan, confused and uncertain on what to say to the wolf that was accompanying him. They first went towards end of the hallway with Flynn's flashlight mounted on his chest looking forward, they saw that in front of them was wall made of gold, with the image of Marigold sculpted on it. When Flynn stroke the sculpted image of the princess, they both heard a ghastly wail from deeper in the tomb echoing to the upper floor.

Whatever the scream was it caused the already frightened Logan to be pushed back by it. He swallowed his breath and looked to Flynn. "I'll answer that later…" Logan said as he looked back to the golden door. Ever since hearing the stories of Midas and the golden touch he was afraid of touching anything made of gold. As such he extended the rail guns from his forearms and pointed them to the golden door ahead of him. "I think we got bigger questions to answer… If you have a better suggestion say it now. Otherwise I can cut through the door I think. I think." Logan as he tried to remember the malleability of gold.

Flynn however soon noticed something on the door, a wooden knob for safe handling, he grabbed the knob with both hooves and rotated it and push the door inward, revealing a staircase leading them down to the burial chamber. On both sides of the stairs, they saw canals for the Eitr, glowing blue resin like substance flowing down to the burial chamber. "Okaaaayyyy. This is getting a bit creepy here." Flynn commented feeling rather cringey as he went down the stairs finding more gold and depictions of Midas's tragedy, his hubris and the punishment the God Dionysus had imposed on him just to teach him a lesson about greed and opulent. They soon found a massive dome like chamber with a pedestal in the middle of it.

On top of the pedestal was the golden mare statue of Marigold, the daughter of Midas and before her was a sarcophagus, Logan and Flynn saw the Greek writing to be "Here lies Midas, in loving memory and tragedies. May his tale be a warning to all."

Around the burial area they found themselves in, they saw a massive pool for the Eitr and Flynn could smell the icy air of the substance. Logan can see with his HUD that the Eitr seem to have some sort of biological, chemical components that reanimated corpses, it seemed like a sort of virus or parasite that once embedded into the host's body will begin to ravage their minds in exchange for breathing in strength and longevity to the body.

Despite its blue and lustrous appearance Logan knew not to even touch the cursed Eitr, or he'd be faced with dire consequences as such. He gagged a bit just by the overpowering other worldly smell of the substance. However, just by examining its function he knew Earl could not be saved with this. It diminished his hopes quickly, and he sighed. "So that's it… It's evil and it will just curse my uncle… That's just great. Hope our captain is happy…" Logan said moving away from the strange liquid.

Of course to Logan and Flynn's chagrin, they heard the same wailing and screaming again, this time they can see where did the ghastly sound come from, it was the golden statue itself. Marigold, the eternally petrified daughter of Midas was still alive somewhat, screaming and standing still in a prison that acted as a monument to the sin and guilt of Midas. "Oh Jesus...I think we've found our sound effect provider." Flynn commented ominously. They were soon joined by El Capitan and his entourage of Bodyguards while the others were staying behind with Angie and Earl to guard them.

"At last...the Eitr is mine…" The weasel quickly ran to the edge of the platform and tried to reach for the substance and cupped his paws together to drink from the pool. As he sipped his first cup of Eitr, he began to cackle and laughing maniacally while rolling on the ground gripping his sore throat. "Que ha pasado? What is happening to me!?" He gasped out seeing that his paws were wrinkling, turning from somewhat healthy and full of flesh to a more corpse like state with the bones being all that's left, skin and fur began to molt and fall off revealing the glowing bones underneath.

It was at that moment, they were introduced to the previous victims of the Eitr, from the pool, ghoulish zombie like creatures jumped up and grabbed onto the platform, slowly crawling up to them. "Uh Logan, anything to say about these?" Flynn shuddered in fear, he stuttered seeing the zombie like mammals like wolves, tigers, lions, deers and so on walking towards them with pale lifeless, glowing eyes.

With the situation quickly going some heartbreaking, to eery, and finally to completely insane Logan's first action was to simply at first action was to back up and use his arm mounted rail guns to blow the heads off of the first few of them. "Yeah. My advise is to FUCKIGN RUN!" Logan shouted while eeping his eye on the captain. He huffed seeing the captain degraded and rot before his very eyes. As horrific as it was and how much he didn't know of him, Logan still huffed out feeling justice was somehow doen as if it were a living entity in the room. "You got what you wanted. Now you can live forever with some freakin' zombie demons." Logan said bitter in his tounge.

"No! No! Don't leave me here, I will pay you an-" El Capitan was cut short when he finally breathed his last feeling life exiting his decaying body while his mercenaries either ran for their lives or being eaten by the Eitr Revenants. Flynn scampered and fell to his stomach while Logan was able to run off as a head start, the equine stood back up trying to make a run for it catching up to Logan. But as he was catching up to Logan, a Revenant jaguar leap up and caught Flynn on his back, forcing him down on the ground stumbling and rolling to throw off the monster. "Help! Logan! Use your...robot...blaster...thing on this thing!" Flynn cried out for help as he struggled to push the Revenant off of him. Logan would fired off a shot at the zombie, he bolt pierced through the thin flesh of zombie and struck the Eitr vein on the ground, to Logan's surprise, it set off an explosion, this soon start a chain reaction with the Eitr began to explode in drove, rocking and bringing down the tomb's inner sanctum.

Logan then ran over to Flynn and hoisted him into the air using his robot strength. It was a very strong pull up into the air that actually caught Flynn by surprise before he got to his feet, but despite his helpfulness Logan still showed his anger by pushing Flynn forwards forcing him to keep his retreat in motion. "Don't just stand around! Run! Don't fall again! Logan demanded sounding frantic as the zombies gave chase behind him and Flynn.

Back at the main room Earl heard the shots of Logan's rail gun in his arm and squinted while still in pain. "L-Logan?... What the god damn hell? Ergh.." Earl coughed up some blood while trying to stand up to his feet only for Cloey to keep him back down. "No. Stay down." Cloey said solemnly. She shook her head out and anxiously looked to the abyss hearing Flynn yelling as well.

"Oh shit...they really hit the shit button now." Said Angie in stark realization as her ears perked up hearing not only the sound of Flynn screaming and yelling but also of Logan's robot arms shooting at the incoming zombie hordes. In the dark tunnel behind the atrium, Anubis emerged with his bow and arrows ready, he waltzed in and fired three arrows at the 3 mercenaries standing in the 3 corners of the room, seizing the opportunity Angie quickly tossed a climbing axe at the throat of the last hired gun in the room.

"We need to leave now!" Anubis commanded sternly as he looked at the wounded and crippled Earl, the deity then went to Earl's side and handed him a brown cloth pouch, it reeks the scent of tea leaves to help relax Earl's mind. "Cloey! Angie! Get out of there now!" Flynn ran towards them just behind Logan. They would see hordes of Revenants running after them and the Undead were coming towards them nearing the bridge in fact, Anubis then slammed his scepter on the ground, summoning a portal, from which, cyan arms of the dead and bony hands tucked away at the Revenant hordes. Anubis's mouth began to glow with him puffing up his chest, he took a step forward and hunched himself forward breathing out the Plague of Locusts blowing through the Revenants.

Logan dived to the ground and held his hand over his head while his rear was high in the air as if he were about to face some kind of explosion. He looked ridiculous, but currently for him it was well needed after being stricken with sadness, anger, fear, and confusion. Most of all though he's seen Anubis's power before and trusted not to go into combat against him besides their first encounter.

Cloey fell to her own rear however seeing the other power Anubis had with him and could only watch silently as the locusts tore up the horde of revants as if they were getting sand blasted with shards of massive glass rather than abrasive sands. She gasped and looked for Flynn in the group after Logan had come through.

Much to Cloey's horror however, Flynn was caught in the midst of the zombie hordes, burdened by their immense strength as they pin him down. Anubis commanded them more sternly to run while the ceiling of the tomb was crashing down on them. "Just go Cloey! There's nothing for us here!" Flynn screamed out. Seeing his selflessness for the first time was a shock for Angie, she had been so familiar with the pompous self indulging manner of him so long that she couldn't believe that he was sacrificing himself to save them. Having no time left to think, she tossed the golden Paw of Midas down to the abyss of the cave knowing that it will be buried there for good.

"I'll see you on the other side soon...you goddamn womanizer." Angie chided him, but not scornfully, but out of mutual respect of the moment before running out of the tomb with Logan and Anubis helping Earl with them. There was no way for them to stop, they had to run, bolt like the lighting out of the collapsing tomb, finally, once they exited the place, the collapsing structure caved in, burying the legacy of Midas's Golden touch and the Eitr once and for all. "Well...one more mystical artifact erased for good. For the better at least." She huffed out and panting exhaustively before looking back at Earl. "How's that wound doing Earl?" She asked as Anubis put him on the ground.

Earl much to their dismay still breathed heavily, and looked to be in absolute pain. He felt the pulsing and throbbing of his wound each time his heart beat it caused his stomach to ache and move back into pain. "Oh god I can feel my whiskey leaking out of me… I feel… I feel sick…" Earl said with nausea in his voice while he looked to his blood soaked shirt. Red gooey liquid poured out of his round and pills onto his clothes quickly becoming cld to the touch. He grabbed his wound with his hand and hold it putting some pressure on it while groaning in more pain. Cloey winced at the sight and felt tears form in her own eyes just by the sher guilt. He consciously berating her for allowing money to get the best of her and following a mad dog leader.

Logan however seemed to be doing the worst and grabbed Earl by both of his shoulders and hoisted him closer to him. As this happened Logan hugged Earl close to him while sobbing pain and anguish. "Come on don't die Uncle Earl.. No… Please! Anubis! Do something! What do I do!?" Logan shouted in a frantic state.

"Calm down. He will not walk the Duat...yet." Anubis calmly replied as he picked up a bottle of healing medicine form his pocket, he rubbed the medicine on his paw in a similar manner to what he did to Angie when they first met at Lycopolis. He then rubbed the ointment paws on Earl's wound, gently letting the potion doing its work. To Earl's amazement, he saw that his blood and flesh was pushing the bullet that pierced his stomach out of him gently, soon the rear of the bullet was protruding out of the entry hole much to Angie's amazement as he then pry the projectile out of his body and tossed to the ground.

"There, Logan, Angie apply pressure here and tie the bandage on the wound to keep it close. Earl will need at least a month till he can finally fly again until then, how about consider having a vacation will you?" Anubis instructed casually to Earl before letting out a soft and light hearted laugh while seeing Angie and Earl tying the bandage on the wound. Once the wound has been tied up, Anubis helped Earl to his feet and let the pilot wolf have a piggyback ride on the jackal's back. Despite not being a robot like Logan, Anubis was still surprisingly strong and physically capable of lifting the mortal up. "Let's go home. Maybe you could consider becoming a Jackal Guards pilot Earl. Interested?"

Earl looked down to Anubis while still awkward about the piggyback ride. Despite this he calmly wrapped his arms around Anubis neck while making a tired groan. "Yeah. Whatever that is. A vacation sounds nice as well… At least he didn't shoot me in the liver or it would have been the end of this wolf's days.. Drinkin' wise." Earl said before laughing. However, he stopped himself from laughing since each time he let out even a small chuckle he felt a surge of pain.

Logan however laughed with glee and joy. He felt metal tear stream out of his synthetic eye ducts. His tears of course looking metallic rather than like normal clear water. He sighed with ashaken breath of air out of his lungs while he looked to Anubis. "Thank you man. Thank you so much…" Logan said while glancing to Anubis.

Cloey however remained in the back with her arms crossed. Too ashamed to look at the rest she looked away from them all. "Whatever I can do to repay you guys I can do it. Should have never been fooled by money, or the promise of. Crazy weasel is dead and burning in hell now." Cloey said bitterly.

"Well at least we're alive and the important part is...we have a tale to tell." Angie said in a rather upbeat tone as they return to the boat for their trip back home to civilization. The sun has set for them on this journey. The night under Thoth's moon will have tales told by the campfire of the Jackal Guards. When Ra's sun rises from the East the next day on Khepri's back and claws, they will have a new adventure to pursue and new discoveries to be made.


	7. Epilogue

**Author's note: This epilogue is a bit strange for us to write but we felt the need to include it regardless to set up some characters and ideas for our future fics. Namely the character Earl Lupis and Kaz of Squdge/Shiryu Rex/Set Sutekh. We hope you guys enjoy what we have to offer here in this epilogue and the shared universe the SMITE, Zootopia and even Godzilla stories we wrote.**

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Epilogue

Anubis reached into the jar containing tea leaves on his table, he picked out some of the leaves and poured them into a cup with boiling water. The porcelain cup had a lotus like decor on its surface, painted in sapphire blue and emerald green color, true to Eewgyptian style from the New Kingdom period. Once the cup of the tea was done he picked up the beverage and handed it with care to Earl, who was lounging on a bed next to Anubis. "Here you go, have some of this to help yourself. It will ease your body's strains and make healing easier." Said the deity as he sat down on a wooden stool in front of Earl and sighed out exhaustively.

It was not easy for him to fly Earl back to Zootopia the whole way with little piloting experience, he nearly crashed along the way if not for Earl and Kukulkan's support. Now, they were back in the museum, killing time and recovering from the ordeals. "To be honest, I'm more comfortable with being the passenger than an actual pilot." The jackal stated, half jokingly as he looked to his sides, seeing various Jackal Guards workers building up the hideout underneath the museum, bringing in materials and office furniture for Anubis as well as enlarging the underground hideout to include a future lab.

Earl looked down at the tea and made a more cringe-like expression on Anubis's piloting skills, or what little skills the jackal actually had with him. Regardless Earl took a sip of tea feeling the warm Earthy taste of the beverage move into his mouth and then seap down his throat. It was surprising for Earl himself to enjoy the beverage since he recalled himself only have coffee with sugar most of his life. "A ladies thing" is what he called tea at least. "Huh. This stuff ain't half bad. Guess I haven't had it enough." Earl said as he looked back up to Anubis. "So…Any reason I had to hustle back to the cockpit of the plane when you dipped her nose way too far down?" Earl said. If he wasn't sitting he would be tapping a foot on the ground.

"Oh...simply put got too confused. I know warfare and law practices for the dead. But when it comes to piloting, I haven't taken up schools of it yet." Anubis stated not sounding joking or at all pretending. He stood up from the stool and went to the table of his office and write down some of the orders and directives for his secretaries and subordinates. He handed out the orders to his underlings who then ran to do some works around the hideout. Earl can see that the Guards were printing out posters, recruitment posters perhaps and they were written in Greek.

The message was accompanied by an airbrush image of the Jackal Guards as an ancient Howllenic Hoplite with a Sarissa spear and Hoplon shield and the Xiphos sword sheathed on their belt. The image of a Jackal Guards in full armor standing firm and tall give off an impression and aura of impressive sense of duty, an ideal image that someone can look up to.

Earl can then see that Anubis handed about three of his warriors badges in the shape of a scarab with its wings spread out horizontally. He spoke to them in Greek dialects and before long they bowed to him and ran off with stacks of papers in their hands through portals to realms beyond Earl's comprehension.

Seeing the sights Earl nearly spat out his tea seeing more supernatural items go beyond his rationality. He took a hard and heavy gulp down and groaned feeling his throat expand and grow sore. He could watch the guards enter portals before he stood up on his two feet albeit rather weakly still after being shot. He limped over to Anubis and tilted his head. "What's goin' on? You just sent those guys… If they are guys, through a portal. What looked like one at least unless that was something else I don't know about." Earl said confused.

Anubis sat down on the floor in front of Earl, on his knees and with bowls of incenses on either sides to meditate. "Don't worry about it Earl." He said as he crossed his legs. "I sent them off to post recruitment posters in the Afterlife. Duat, Aaru, Elysium, and any other plains of afterlife throughout the realm of deities. They'll be back eventually." He calmly stated and sighed out. Anubis handed to Earl a set of advertisements and coupons for vacations ranging from a trip to the Mediterranean Sea, to the cruise trips in the Caribbean Sea. "I think you would like one of these trips Earl. Hopefully they will help you get well soon." He said in a dry but sincere tone.

In one of the realm his warrior traveled to, the lone Jackal arrived at a cloudy like world, with bright light and golden gates almost like Olympus, it was anything but. The warrior walked into the kingdom of Heaven of the Cross and the Lord on High, he wandered about looking for a public space of the Ethereal realm before he came to a square. There he came to a pillar and nailed the poster on the column and more on the walls for the souls there to see. Once it was done he went about repeating his job at other sections of the realm.

However, the post was quickly seen by a man. One still in about his mid 30s to early 40s. As he walked across the heavenly plain of after life He viewed the notice posted by the jackal. Most of his front was obscured, but just by his back he was wearing green army fatigues and had blond hair. He was a medium build as well. Not too muscular, but still fit. "Huh. That's one of the weirder things that came here. Now what is… For hire?" The man said to himself. He quickly turned around look at the jackal guard. He was wearing some nice aviator shades and his hair was actually a slightly long slicked back mullet. "Hey buddy where do you come from?" he asked intrigued.

"Aaru!" The Jackal replied with his left hand over his muzzle to amplify his voice to the man. "The Lord of the Duat calls, military duties for those without purposes in the afterlife." Said the jackal. The man can see that this jackal was dressed in traditional Egyptian garment, a white trouser with a golden ornate scarab belt buckle on the pelvic area of his torso. On his wrists were golden bracelets sporting the ankh, a symbol of life in ancient Egypt, while he was bare on his chest, the canine appeared to be a well built and fit for military service.

"I heard that the Strategos is looking for younger generation of warriors, any man who knows firearms, gunpowder and modern equipment are encouraged to join. Unless you find sitting around on the clouds enough for personal preferences." The jackal stated as he posted another recruitment advertisement on the wall of a nearby cloud structure and continue his duty. But the dialect he spoke was most intriguing. Aaru, Duat, Strategos, they were Coptic and Greek languages respectively, denoting his origin from either Egypt or Greece, but most likely Egypt judging by the outfit he had.

Despite the strange dialect the man crossed his arm and followed the strange looking being closely. "Is that right?" He asked still curious. To him the odd appearance of the jackal guard further spied his interests, but for unknown reasons. He looked at the other posters seeing they were also made for recruiting. It made his spiritual heart jump almost. He quickly looked back to the jackal excited, but still calm and cold. "Well I have military experience. I was stationed in Japan for a while with an old friend. I wanted to help the world you know. Then… Heart disease got to me. Didn't see it coming, and then WHAM! Flatlined." He said rather casually. He tagged along still and grinned. "And you know. This place is paradise, but I think i can give a whirl with my old gun. Whoever, and whatever you are. Not sure still since you haven't said." He said confused. On further inspection it sounded like he had a very sore throat, and after he finished he coughed a bit. "You see?" He asked

"I am Tahemet of Thebes Nome. Kemet is my home as the Nile feeds my descendants, so shall I offer my grave to the lost and restless, knowing that my service with Lord Anubis is most honorable." Said the Jackal in a proudful boast as he handed Kaz a sample of his second set of posters, this was an instruction pamphlet from the looks of it, apparently Kaz only need to obtain the necessary passports to travel from Paradise to Kemet in the Mediterranean, namely to Alexandria and report to the Barracks in the city where he can apply for the Jackal Guards. What caught his attention the most was that the pamphlet was written in Greek and Coptic with visual guides stylized in Hellenic fashion with some Hieroglyphs on it. Kaz can see the depiction of Alexandria to be right out of ancient times, Classical Antiquities with the Lighthouse of Alexandria and Library of Alexandria to be in prominent display.

"No need to hold my hand pal. Been nagging our guy here about getting back to Earth." the man said while pointing at what appeared to be a 50's style train station post. Almost comical looking, but even the angel in side was wearing a navy blue uniform much like a ticket collector. He seemed to have his hand full at the moment with 5 other travelers to this strange place, but Kaz sighed. "Said I couldn't simply leave here without extra help since I would be a zombie for lack of better words on Earth. Begged and pleaded to him to let me go back. Nope. I get it though. Seeing me walk around after a failed heart surgery would have been odd. Chst all cut up and stitched to shit and all. Not a pretty sight." he said looking to the ticket holder. He grinned now looking at what he thought was an all exposed payed trip, or even a permission slip back to life.

"I think I can show him this real quick... " he said rather cryptically before looking back at Tahemet. "Stay put doggy. I'll be right back." he finished before leaving really hastily. All Tahemet saw though was the military man cutting through line, and slamming the paper on the desk in front of him and laughing.

Begrudgingly the ticket holder stamped the passport before mouthing a warning to the man that life as he knows it will change. It was odd though hearing the angel's voice. Otherworldly and rather light in his tone. The man came running back to the guard however still laughing. "I got it! Lets get outta here! Look! Look!" he shouted pointing to a red colored "PASS" stamp on the flyer. "When can we go? I've been trying this for a very long time! Get me back out there!" he shouted anxiously.

"As soon as you are ready. Since my posts have been exhausted I would say it's about time for me to leave. My comrades will congregate in Alexandria to review the new blood. Welcome to the Jackal Guards." Said Tahemet as he held an empty box in his paws. He then proceeded to morph his appearance back to a more appropriate combat form with Boeotian helmet on his head, breastplate made from bronze and tightly weaved leather and hides on his chest and a hoplon shield on his left hand, on his right hand was a long Sarissa spear, the man can see the spear was about 6 meters long with a steel blade on the end of the shaft. On his belt was a Xiphos sword sheathed but ready at all time for combat.

The military man can see that the sword had a hilt shaped like a wolf's head with the blade being a proverbial and literal tongue of the wolf. Rather fitting design and motif. "You will have to learn Greek when you get there, it is the language of command after all. Do you have a name?" Tahemet asked with a scroll and quill in hands ready to write down the recruit's name.

The man nodded and stood more at attention despite the odd transition and quick change of events here now. "Kazuhira Miller. I like Kaz though as my name. It's easier to say and people who don't know how to read can say it easier." Kaz spoke. He looked into the empty box and tilted his head rather confused. "So what's the jackal guards, and why does everything look Greek?" Kaz asked inquisitive.

Tahemet wrote down Kaz's name on the list of new recruits before rolling it up and wrapped the list into a scroll pack on his back. "We are an army dedicated to protecting mortals from the threat of deities overstepping their boundaries. But most of all, we protect mortals from the threat of Apep, the accursed Serpent of Darkness and Chaos." Tahemet spoken plainly apparently the job has become so familiar to him that he had the lines taped down in some ways.

"We were formed by Anubis, Patron of the Dead and Judge of Two Lands. Strategos of Alexandria. He studied the art of Hellenic Warfare and that of our homeland of Kemet and formed a fighting force of fast moving native troops and the durable and mighty Hellenic Warriors like the Hetairoi and Phalangitai of Hellas." Tahemet stated as they went to collect Kaz's personal belongings with the Jackal Guards walking closely beside him, soon enough, before Kaz's eyes, he saw a massive Trireme ship, the like of Ancient Greece or from the myth of the Argonaut arriving in Heaven, with its sail bearing the image of a golden falcon over a sapphire blue background.

Its very massive size and the elegance of the ship drew Kaz closer to it. As he got closer he felt himself slipping away from the binds of heaven and getting closer to a new life. A literal new life since he felt he would be resurrected back into complete existence at long last after having spent so many years placed into paradise without having much to do. Ironically the peace and home nature of heaven offered him not much to do since he did not live his life on Earth out to the fullest. He quickly stepped aboard the vessel, hope and excitement in his heart, as he looked around. "I might miss constant pampering… For like 5 minutes. Lets get outta here please!" Kaz shouhed.

"Set sail!" The captain shouted as the Guards onboard began to retract the ramp from the cloud like harbor after the amount of new recruits have been accounted for. The ship's oarsmen began to paddle the ship backward out to "Open sea" as the captain call it and soon they were heading off to Alexandria. Kaz onboard would see that the crew men and Marines were having a universal form, jackal with various shades to their fur. Each one sporting a Hoplon shield with a personalized image painted on them. However underneath the ship's hull, he would see that the crew below were strangely enough, anthropomorphic animals of various types. Mostly were mammals standing on two legs wearing clothes like normal humans like him and even talk like humans. It felt odd that they all speak Greek but for obvious reasons, they had to. The cloud began to change, giving ways for the bowl of the ship to pierce through actual water and waves. Kaz felt the wind blowing on his face and hair and before long he saw before him, the harbor of Pharos, Alexandria with the flame of the lighthouse burning bright as the star, drawing vessels into the port.

The sight seem to come right out of a depiction of the ancient city in history books. But everything was real, moving and living before Kaz's eyes. As the ship came to the Military Port, he saw that various warships were mooring off the piers each one sporting a statue of either Isis, Horus, Ra or even some Greek deities on their bowls with iron tipped rams.

"Off the ship! Off the ship!" The captain hollered as the new recruits began to disembark from the vessels, two more ships similar in design and size came to port disembarking various new recruits, some of them were seen wearing navy blue shirts with the word "UNKCC" printed on it, others were seen dressing in digital camo uniform with the the word "GDI" on the shoulder patch.

Others were apparently more mysterious humans with a Hexagonal badge on their shoulder with a red S letter in the middle of it. At least two of the men were seen bickering and arguing with each other, two of them from the UNKCC and GDI groups were loudly bickering with the one wearing the Hexagonal symbol while following the columns of recruit through the city.

As Kaz moved through the groups he kept an eye on thow the men and women fighting with the odd patched men went about their bickering. Frankly he was a bit confused, but the uniforms of those labeled "UNKCC" and "GDI" were partly familiar to him. He shrugged the oddity off and continued moving forwards to where he was needed. "Nice … Greek place here. Too bad you guys won't stop swearing and accusing each other of terror, or something…" Kaz grumbled while heading toward one of the many statues in the city.

The group moved with each other through the city towards the outer edge of town in the East, there, they came to an army barracks with an Egyptian banner flying on the rooftop. They walked into the barracks to the parade ground in the center of it where a company commander barked out orders to them, "Strategos at attention!" He shouted out in Greek, the language may have been a barrier but the tone was enough to give them the impression that he was issuing something akin to "Atten hut" like in their own bootcamps.

From the darkened halls nearby, out came Anubis, walking towards the company of fresh recruits. He was dressed in a bronze breastplate armor of the Greeks over his white tunic. On his belt was a Xiphos sword sheathed and ready to be drawn, walking with him was Ammut, the Devourer. "Oh shiiiit...is this for real? I mean...that's like the what...God of Death or something?" Said one of the recruit from the "GDI" to his fellow recruits, next to him was a UNKCC member and to his left was an Orion member. He was perplexed as much as they were.

The impression was enough to get the UNKCC and octagonal logoed Orion men to sand up to attention. In fact it looked like some of the Orion men stood at attention better than their counterparts do to how robotic and statuesque ten turned seeing an authority figure come into the room was. One of the caucasian UNKCC member with what looked to be a massive bite mark indented in his entire torso looked to Ammut and shivered. "Looks like the one that got me and Mike in Taiwan… holy shit so we're are fucking dead for real then…" he said darkly. Kaz looked over to the UNKCC man noting the massive bite wound and then recognized him, or at least what he said. "Oh one of the big guys got you then. Well smaller than the big guys. Yeesh…" Kaz said grimly.

"256 men...all of you would be enough for a Phalanx company for me." Said Anubis with a stern and booming voice to the recruits. He came to the side ways of the company looking at their uniforms, seeing that each one of them were of course from different organizations with Kaz being the odd man out being much more old school and light in terms of uniforms.

"Today I seek no Phalanx or hoplites. Those posts have been filled for too long. For all of you will first be trained in a different manner than the rest of your kins. For you will be the new standards of the Jackal Guards. The wars you have fought and the experience you have will be put to train the already existing formations and new recruits in the future." He declared with a tone filled with absolute conviction as he eye the men without a hint of emotional attachment.

A calm and professional look that seems to seal the deal for them, he then snapped his fingers and the souls of the new recruits began to shine in a bright light, they felt their body being reshaped and molded, apparently to fit with the new army. Once the light faded away, they were all jackals standing on two legs similar to Anubis but each one sporting a lighter shades of fur than their Strategos.

The sudden transition from being a human to now a jackal in appearance made all of the men there give off a confused uproar of quiet mumbling. However, if it meant work and some purpose other than just sitting around and accepting fate as a pampered soul then they were ready to accept this just as another challenge itn their life. Despite their odd appearance looking at just how fierce and godly they looked now gave many men some kind of new motivation.

Kaz for one laughed seeing himself. He took it rather well and half jokingly looked behind himself to see if he even sported a tail to go along with his look. He then looked at his arms and legs not sign his odd appearance, and yet it was welcomed. He coughed a bit before speaking. A rather hoarse and painful sounding cough the separated him from the group, but he treated it as normal. "Oh *cough* damn! Look at me! I look like American Weerwolf in Lon- *cough* don… Eugh. There goes that joke." Kaz said before coughing again several times. Not out of shock, but it seems his soul bore his respiratory and circulatory condition. A piece of him forever.

"Do not take the impression that you will all be pampered here as elites." Anubis said sternly to them, giving them a moment to let his words sink into their heads. "You will learn two things, unity and pain. Love them as your new wives. Ephebois! Retire!" He ordered them, allowing them to retire to their new quarters as Jackals of his army. It was strange for some of them to hear him addressing them as Epheboi. As it was the Greek word for youths or young boys.

The first few weeks were education in Greek languages, the men were taught dialects, pronunciation and grammars in classes. It felt like they were going through Elementary Schools and restart their education from the ground ups. Others who are familiar with the learning of foreign languages took the learning well seeing it as part of their routines, each day they would have drill yard rehearses, marching in formations and taking orders in Greek.

Despite Anubis's words that they will not be Hoplites in Phalanx formations, they still have to march in phalanx formations in full Hoplite battle gears. Their coordinator march closely with the formation, shouting orders in Greek for them to turn right, left, stop or enter phalanx formation or loose formation in 2 meters spread. The drill was meant to bring a sense of unity and cohesion to the often bickering trio of GDI, UNKCC and Orion factions.

Their training continued on to indoctrinations in philosophies, laws, and the objective of the Jackal Guards, to protect all mortals from godly threats, to ensure harmony between the realms and to offer their graves to the weak. Bound by duties, they serve without question. Honored with high standards, they uphold. Without fear, they act with bravery to execute their missions and objectives. All boiled down to the Guards motto, three words, two syllables of "Duty, Honor, Valor". Soon their graduation day came, a trial by fire to prove their worth on the battlefield both as a normal Hoplite of the Guards and their skills to modernize Anubis's army.

They were marching with other formations of the Guards in a long column in the desert of Egypt, as far as they know, they were heading Eastward towards the Levant, the province of Judea had suffer an invasion by the Crusading army, if Kaz had learned anything during his training, it would be that this world was on a strange loop with the Gaul, Britannia and Germania along with the Iberia now donning the Medieval trappings.

On the flanks of the phalanx formations were cavalry forces, the men had learned to familiarize themselves with the organizations and uniforms and can tell the ones on the right to be elite Hetairoi or Companions Cavalry with Anubis riding on his personal horse, Ramiel to lead them, to their left were the Thessalian and lighter Sarissa Lancers.

They themselves were Phalangites, the pikemen of the Kingdom. "Last one to down theirs is a member of the Theban Sacred Band!" Shouted one of the men from the phalanx behind them, both Kaz and Orion men next to him would have heard it.

Kaz hearing this understood by now what the words all meant after rigorous training, and still felt both struck in power, and some partial embarrassment knowing he was part of over 100-150 now male lovers in a massive grouping as he was not one to know his own orientation in the after life. Nor did he know this in the after life.

It didn't seem like the Orion men besides him took too much complaints now either as they stood marching as drones now. Kaz however grumbled just slightly and just accepted this was a role he would need if he were to perform better and near perfect with the men around him. After all it seems there was no better bond than love itself. Even if he didn't know this to be certain. It seems still that his real love was not a physical man, but what he was fighting in, and the group itself, and the army around him.

As they marched nearer to the settlement of Jerusalem, the grand prize of every Crusaders who had left their homes in Europe to "Liberate" from the grip of heathen hordes of Pagans. Anubis blew a horn as the sun was setting to the West, signalling them to set up camp around the pasture ground near a water spring. Being a native to the land, Anubis knew that marching on the desert means that the greatest resource over oil is water and his water will need to go from one source to another. Behind the main force was the camel baggage train to haul in food, ammo, clothing and water. They built up a camp near the pasture ground while their steeds graze the land. Kaz himself was in a long tent with his Phalanx formation of 256 jackals.

The other jackals spread out either resting in their own camps or patrolling the outer edges of the camp. Funny enough, Kaz noticed that the army he marched with didn't have just jackals shaped souls, some of the more exotic ones donned armor suits reminiscent of Sekhmet and Anhur with large battle axes and rectangle shields. "Never thought I would be in a historical reenactment group...then again, my nephew said that he had been playing Total War so long he could have been a general of an ancient army." One of the jackal from the GDI chuckled to his Orion counterpart as he sat on his bed polishing his Sarissa long spear.

"Tell me about it...at least the Strategos was a pretty cool guy. Strict but still kinda young like college kids. Wonder if he had a chariot riding license." Said another jackal from the GDI like him as they prepare to turn in for the night. Thankfully for them, despite the army's ancient appearance, they still have some aspects modern life such as medicines and hygienes like toothbrush and toothpaste for the men. Their payments however were in Drachma, the ancient Greek currency, by this time, any Orion members could tell that the Drachma coin would be worth in the Billions.

Kaz himself payed for some of the modern luxury items in such currency to the merchant there. Over the weeks he's enjoyed his new look. It seems with his new digitigrade legs he could run faster than if he had his old plantigrade legs which kept up with Anubis's courses. However, the one thing that was not keeping up with him was still his cough. As he paid the merchant he smiled to the man as he coughed hard. "Some toothpaste, deodorant, Shampoo, and a Marlboro Light Box please. *Cough* maybe some Motrin as well." Kaz requested. It seems though over the week despite the differences in between all of the men that they had all grown equal, but Kaz for whatever reason seemed to be a lot different. Older almost.

"I'll get them!" One of the men at the end of the tent shouted with a list of items for them in hand and bag of Drachma coin in another, he walked out to the department store of the army in the camp to purchase the items. Anubis himself was inside his Strategos tent, looking over the battle map of the terrain where two armies will inevitably will meet. The terrain was mostly desert with sandy dunes shifting to the wind's directions. There were also palm trees and small patches of vegetations scattered around the place, not enough to provide an ideal hiding place for his cavalry forces but enough for them to avoid heat waves.

The local farmers were still tending to the fields and crops there, seeing that they had nowhere to go and if they left their farms then they will be without pensions or earning for a long time. No doubt that Crusaders would drive to take the farmlands after they take the city of Jerusalem. "Back now, share them out boys." Said the returning jackal as he share out the items they bought from the department stores, for the night they'll sleep without problems but by dawn they will be doing battles. Each of them took their time to brush their teeth and cleaning themselves before lights out.

Dawn came over the Eastern horizon, Anubis was kneeling on a carpet looking at the rising sun before him. He bowed his head to the ground and pray in Coptic. It was strange for a God to pray as if he were a mortal, but for Anubis, they were mortals and equal some may last longer than the other, but in the end they will have to come to term with their fates. He prayed for a moment to the morning sun of Khepri before standing up and rolled up his carpet and went to his tent putting on his armor and fasten his helmet on his head. He sheathed his sword on his belt before walking out as a Strategos ready for battles.

His troops were combing their fur, putting perfume and oil on their bodies as combat tradition of the Jackal Guards dictate. Kaz's group were apparently following suites apparently aware of the fact that this was the Spartan way of psyching themselves up for battles. To die gloriously in battles while looking fabulous doing it. "Jackal Guards form up and move out!" Their Strategos barked out as he mounted on Ramiel's back, the horse stirred up the dust and sand on its hooves while the jackal deity held his sarissa spear in his right hand, riding out of his camp with his elite Companion Cavalries while his army marched out in Phalanx formations.

They would soon come to face the Crusading army, each one of the Medieval knights were apparently sporting white tunic over their suits of chainmail armor with a red cross on their uniforms. Professional soldiery wasn't their trade however as each contingent of the army bear a different flag showing that they were from a different fiefdom. To the front were Frankish and Normans bearing kite like shields with red crosses painted on them. Each of them held a spear in hand while behind them dismounted feudal knights with boxy helmets and long swords. On the wings of the opposing army were elite knights in heavy armor and large lances in hand ready to charge into chivalrous glory while crossbowmen from the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire were seen marching forward ready to fight.

Anubis's army was formed up with standard Macedonian battle tactics, Kaz found his Phalanx to be in the middle along with many others ready to enter Phalanx formations, to the ends of their lines were Hypapists, mobile elite infantry forces to plug the gaps of less mobile anvil phalanxes. Behind the phalanxes were elite Thorax Swordsmen and the axemen calling themselves "Pride of Sekhmet". On the left wing of the Jackal Guards were the Sarissa cavalries and Thessalian horsemen. To the right was the Companion Cavalry. Anubis himself was seen marching in the center of his army to inspect his troops and give a battle speech.

"Children of two lands! I come with you to battles today, to defend our homeland and our people from a marauding hordes of mindless oppressors!" He shouted out to his men who then gave out a unison "Ahhh-rroooo!" to their general.

"These crusaders have marched far from their homes, for what? A city? A city in their words to be Holy? They left their crops untended, their wives hungry and their children vulnerable to the filthy barons and the vultures calling themselves priests! We should pity them before sending them to the afterlife. As for the survivors, let us be merciful and send them home. For they will make great messengers." He raised his spear high giving his troops a stirring morale boost. Over their heads, a gold eagle flew by casting its shadow on the army below. "Zeus be with us!" He rode towards the right flank linking up with his Companion Cavalry, forming their battle lines and march out to engage the Crusaders.

"Oh shit this ain't train-" before Kaz could finish his question he was pushed forwards by many of the men and his allies behind him to be forced forwards in the heat of battle. Once this had occurred he had no choice, but to move more forwards while he felt his heart burn both from the intensity of the other rallying men, and his own crippled soul. His life before was still taking the effect, but he persevered regardless.. His placed his weapon foards and charged into battle. "Can't complain about shit now! I was born for dying!" Kaz boasted being reminded by a certain song.

As the Jackal Guards marched forward to battle, their skirmishers ran up forward before the Phalanx formations and plucked their bows with arrows drawn. These men were dressed in golden battle armors with falcon heads similar to Horus, the Prince of Egypt and God of Sky and Kingship. The archers let loose their arrows into the air, flying down on the Crusading forces own archers. The English Longbow archers returned fire with their own arrows striking at the Marksmen of Horus, the arrows of the Crusaders pierced their armor however, staggering and even humbling some of the men down, but they were merely souls of the dead, no longer can they die even in battles, so they plucked their bows again and fired another volley at their enemies.

The slingers too ran up to replace their archer counterparts, the slingers hurled their projectiles at the faces of the Dismounted Knights who were charging forward, the rocks and stones hit them in their heads, torsos and caused them to fall down. The wounded and dead began to pile up but the knights charged forward with their swords held in their right hands and their spade like shields on their left. Some of the knights were seen in ink black tunics with a white cross on their chest, they were Hospitallers, highly disciplined and skilled knights, monks and doctors at the same time. While their more famous counterparts, the Templars, dressed in cotton white tunics with red crosses over their chest.

Once the knights had come close, the slingers and archers melted into the gaps between the Phalanx lines, and reformed just in between the swordsmen and axemen of the Jackal Guards. "Form Phalanx!" The coordinators barked their orders, each of the Phalangites entered their formations, the first two rows pointed their spears or pikes forward.

The rows to the rear held theirs to a 45 degrees angle or vertically in the absolute rear of the formations. "Eny-a-lios!" The men chanted as they push forward, each formations of Jackals impaled the charging knights with their spears and pikes, holding the enemy heavy infantry forces down in the center. On the right flank Anubis was moving, his elite Companion Cavalry were charging into positions while the Medieval German knights were charging to the flanks of his Phalanx.

These German knights wore a cotton white tunic over their armor and sported black crosses. Their helmets were strangely enough, decorated with horns and an assortment of other kinds of decors. On the right flank Anubis's own Hypapists, elite Hoplites were moving to intercept the knights, forming into their Phalanx formations and pointing their spears out, the impaled and unhorsed the charging Teutonic Knights as the blood bath grew increasingly worse.

"Hetairoi, form flying wedge!" Anubis barked out in Greek, as his Companion heavy cavalry formed into their signature flying wedge formations, Anubis and his pet Ammut were seen leading the charge. They saw the spearmen of the Crusaders following behind on the wings to prevent cavalry charges from overpowering them, the Teutonic and Hospitallers quickly entered their Schiltron formation, forming a hedgehog like mini fortress in the middle of the battle, Ammut charged head first as the typhonian beast itself was hungry for flesh and blood.

It pounced up on the formation, collapsing the fortress from on top, forcing the spearmen out of their safeties. Taking advantage of this chaos and confusion, Anubis charged his Cavalry in, smashing the spearmen on the right flank and shatter a portion of the Crusader's army while his Hypapist Hoplites were forcing the Teutonic Knights back.

On the left wing, the more flexible and maneuverable forces of Sarissa and Thessalian cavalries charged into the locked formations of Dismounted Knights with their axemen following closely to hit the Crusaders in their vulnerable left flank now that both their cavalries and infantries were caught in a stalemate. The Sarissa cavalries pummeled into the missile troops, running down their enemies in drove, while then the Thessalian Cavalries quickly encircled the pinned knights in front of the Phalangites and charged in, throwing men around like ragdolls. Kaz and his fellow Phalangites can see the enemies in front of them were so terrified that the Knights began to throw down their weapons and run for their lives, scattered to every directions they can or simply surrender to the Jackal Guards.

With the retreating medieval forces running or surrendering themselves to the newest recruits of the Jackal Guards Kaz hollered at the top of his week lungs and for his battle cry he made a very loud coughing noise for the group. "Wooo- *cough**cough* oooo… We just *weeze* kicked their Monty- *cough* medieval asses back to whatever dark hole they came *cough* from!" Kaz said still attempting to grasp the reality he was in now, or why time seemed to have gone backwards, but through the teaching Anubis and the Jackal Guards have given him he grinned feeling accomplished. Through the literal heartache and pain and vicious training he felt more at peace now than when he was resting in any after life. Heaven, Duat, the Underworld or any. It seemed fighting was what he was best at now. "Okay *cough* what's next? Who's next? I want more… Not getting played today." he joked.

"Round up the survivors! We need to march the prisoners back home!" Anubis ordered as he reign in his cavalries and his phalanx formations went to collect the battered and beaten crusaders and tied up the prisoners into a long marching column. Administrators began to count the dead and wounded crusaders, the number began to show, about 15000 Crusaders were wounded and an additional 10000 Crusaders were dead in battle. The remainders were seen retreating back into the Mediterranean after the defeat on land as the local Egyptian-Hellenic armies surround their camps and captured fortress of Tyre.

The Jackal Guards marched back to Alexandria with their prisoners in toll. They arrived at the city and were herald as heroes of Two Lands, the populace rejoice throwing petals down on them, cheering and roaring their praises at the elite and battle hardened Jackal Guards with the Crusading Prisoners being dragged in as showcase of their achievements. At the barracks, Anubis was seen in his Strategos office writing some directives, it was an order of reconnaissance and strangely enough, arms and equipment acquisition.

He ordered Kaz and his 256 Phalangites out to the parade ground for special order recipients. The strategos came to them in his usual attire, the paper he wrote was rolled up and store inside a round scroll pack, with a clearing of his throat and a simple order barked out of his muzzle, they were at attention. "Miller, come up here." Anubis ordered Kaz, strangely enough, he addressed Miller individually instead of a whole Phalangite formation.

Kaz of course obediently came to Anubis alone without his lovers behind him. When Anubis finally saw the man he seemed mostly well in shape. His fur was now out of place, but despite war just occurring for the man who spent at least 30-40 years in the afterlife he looked more alive than ever. Back up straight, smile on face, and eyes looking fresh as if he had just woken up from a 100 years rest. He stepped into Anubis's office of course complete with his cough. A very hoarse and painful cough, but it never seemed to bother the odd man. Neither did Anubis or the Jackal Guards as a whole anymore. The thoughts of other Gods out there and paramilitary paranormal forces were all behind him now, and he could focus on coming back to life. He entered Anubis's office and smiled. "Yes *cough* sir. Excuse me." Kaz aid not uttering or coughing another word.

"I'm told that you along with your Phalangites have the experiences and knowledge of modern weapons and firearms. Therefore, I am assigning you along with your Phalangites to gather knowledge regarding modern weapons and equipment. We need them in large quantities to train our forces to a more modern standard." The jackal deity handed Kaz the order, the paper was marked with a red seal bearing the image of Horus.

Once Kaz removed the seal, he can read the wording of the letters, an order to spread out to the realm they originated from and gather weapons and supplies as well as training manuals from major military factions and bring them back to Anubis. "I will be in the Animalia Realm, there are still R&D projects there I need to obtain and also Kaz...make sure that your phalangites minimize contacts with your original commanders there. Revealing ourselves too early and in inconvenient times will only spill disaster for us." He instructed the Japanese Jackal warrior carefully but his voice took a more stern tone, emphasizing the kind of importance anonymity and secrecy the Jackal Guards rely heavily on when exiting the safety of the Deity realm.

Kaz took the envelope contents with as much seriousness he could muster. Seeing pictures of said realm made him laugh slightly, but accepted. "Hey. Walking animals. We'll fit right in boss. Well… *cough* mostly…" Kaz said gesturing to his ancient looking garbs and outfit. It fit in with the current realm he was inhabiting, but the so called animalia realm as Anubis referred to it as he'd still stick out. "As far as i remember jackals aren't black. We look more like dobermans actually. No offense. I'm just saying I need to look the part to fit the part. Blend right *cough* in with whatever society I'm looking at." Kaz said looking into Downtown Zootopia. Like the name suggested it was a marvel of peace and technology on the surface. A true utopia. "Not a bad looking place either. All these building are modern. They got a bunch of nice looking glass. That geometry all the yuppies and hipsters like. Yep. I'd fit as good as a mouse attending a cat party." Kaz jokes.

"Exactly. A group of Jackal Guards scout under my command is already there setting up a new hideout in the city's Museum of Natural History. If you need to find me, come find me there. For now take your Lovers and travel to your home realm of Kaijuverse. There, gather as much as you can of what is requested of me. I wish you luck then Kaz. Just remember this, you are all souls of the dead, focus on the physical form you need to assume and you will be able to constitute your new body from that concentration." He padded Kaz's shoulder and sent him off to meet with the other Phalangites who were standing ready at the parade ground, wondering what has their Strategos told them. "I wonder what does the Strategos want from us now." Said a Jackal from the GDI to his Orion counterpart next to him. They soon saw Kaz coming out from Anubis's office with the rolled up order in hand and they perked their ears up to him. "What did he say?" one of the jackal in the group asked.

Kaz looked down to the note and sighed to the men. He just needed one look at them despite not being there when Orion came to be or even the UNKCC or even the GDI. However, the tlakes he's had with the men, and personal chat they had suggested one thing: they knew where monsters and men inhabited together. It was one of his serious moments. How at least two of the factions were nemesis before they became lovers. "It looks like we are going home. Back to where the *cough* big guys waltz around and destroy stuff. If I hear any lip from you guys then I think I can take it to the boss personally." Kaz said strictly now.

"Just that? Surely you have to be kidding me! He wants us to do something isn't he?" One of them remarked to Kaz pointing at the written order on his paws. The jackal next to him nodded and added his own. "That's right! We ain't just going home in a sudden right? What's on the shopping list he gave us there?" The 255 jackals in front of Kaz nodded and muttered together before looking at him wondering what was on the line. Working together and being through rigorous training meant that they knew Anubis wasn't the type to simply discharge servicemen in a sudden. Not without a probable cause.

"He wants us to do recon work it sounds like guys. Gather info. Maybe a few bullets guns supplies. Point is though we're not going in without his support. I think he's cooking up a few *cough* things in that head of his. So far he just told me to tell you guys to focus on the physical forms we need." Kaz said coughing a few more times. He looked to each one noticing they had the classic GDI, UNKCC, and Orion Sword patches on them. "Which means you guys ain't going to go in sporting faction gear. None. Not a badge, a piece of clothing, or an identity towards what you guys served. *cough* besides that if we can change our souls' form so easily I think we have a chance then to sneak in.:" Kaz said before letting off a sigh. "No talking to people you knew either. No loved ones, friends, commanders. Just straight up study time for R&D stuff." Kaz finished.

The Jackals in front of him nodded hearing this, it was rather bitter to swallow to hear that they can visit their home realm but no allowed to talk to loved ones, friends or colleagues, seeing that they have the ability to do so. However seeing that all of them were dead, and their acquaintances somehow see them again in a sudden would cause chaos and panic in an unnecessary way meant that they have to stomach this one.

"Alright to recap, recon and no contacts with anyone. Get guns and ammo along with equipment to stock up for the army got it." Said one of the Jackals, the group would then retire with Kaz to their quarters and prepare for their departure when they were ready. By nightfall, the men were seen standing in front of a portal summoned by Anubis at the clearing of the Barrack's training field, on the other side of the portal was the sight of Tokyo, the Capital of Japan. "Kaz you first, take some of the men with you as well!" Anubis ordered with his scepter held in hand watching as the Jackals would begin to depart in teams.

Kaz looked back, and closed his eyes. He pointed the index finger of his right hand to a random bunch of men selecting at random so he wouldn't have a biased against any of them before they departed from the portal. An unbiased choice for all of them. "Uh… You, You, *cough* you, I think you. A bunch of them. Please tell me I wasn't just pointing at the same guy over and over." Kaz jokingly said as he lowered his hand away from his face. He sighed out and turned back around towards the portal. Quickly he made one final crucial adjustment and took on his human form. Without his military appearance. A black shirt and blue jeans. Plain and something that would not gather much attention He then nodded to Anubis, and then moved through the portal with the men he selected with him to move as well now.

The remaining jackals followed suits each one assuming their human forms with random attire in mind to keep the world from guessing who they were or have some ideas that these might be the dead men coming back to life in a sudden.

They passed through the portals one by one, each of them entering a different part of the same universe, ranging from Europe, America, Mexico, Russia, India and even a large tropical like island chain with a massive military installation on it.

They went about with appropriate attires to perform their duties but the last group heading to the tropical island didn't need to disguise themselves as they can hide using the island's isolated geography and the natural environment to their advantages.

As the group had disappeared, Anubis retire to his home in Lycopolis by boat, it was a long and tiring couple period for him to keep the portal open for just one group of Phalangites. But at least now he can rest under the diamond sky, whenever he looked up, a faint smile formed on his muzzle, the beauty of the stars, the calmness it brought to him were all that he could ask for. And he knew that somewhere among the stars, his mother was watching and proudly congratulating him for his deeds.


End file.
